CRUDE WRAP: WTI (Z6) SETTLES USD 3.80 HIGHER AT USD 103.27/BBL; BRENT (Z6) SETTLES USD 3.55 HIGHER AT USD 116.72/BBL

Crude oil benchmarks rose steadily through the session amid heightened geopolitical tensions. Prices were supported by a lack of diplomatic progress between the US and Iran, continued attacks on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and ongoing retaliatory strikes between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia. US President Trump said that the US could end the Iran war very quickly, but he questioned whether to finish it. He also claimed that the US could take all of Iran's oil and reiterated his view that the Strait of Hormuz is under US control. Crude futures came under some pressure on news that the Department of Energy has authorised an emergency exchange of up to 400K bbls of crude from the SPR to the Lake Charles refinery of Phillips 66 (PSX) in Louisiana (264K BPD capacity) following supply disruptions; Phillips 66 said it expects no operational impact. Elsewhere in Europe, Germany's oil stockpiling agency EBV issued a tender on Friday to sell diesel, heating oil and crude oil from its strategic reserves, according to a document cited by Reuters.

Sessions of this kind, where crude rallies steadily rather than gapping, have historically been driven by an accumulation of supply-risk headlines rather than a single discontinuous event, and the pattern here fits: stalled diplomacy, vessel attacks in a key chokepoint, and a live regional conflict all feed the geopolitical risk premium that sits on top of prompt fundamentals. The tell in past episodes of this type has been the shape of the curve rather than the flat price: genuine disruption fears bid the front of the curve and deepen backwardation, while pure headline noise tends to lift the strip more uniformly. Notably, the Brent-WTI spread implied by these settlements is wide, consistent with seaborne and freight-driven risk being priced more heavily into the waterborne benchmark than into landlocked US crude, a distinction that has recurred whenever Gulf transit is threatened. The SPR exchange to a single Gulf Coast refinery and the German stock agency's tender sales are the standard official response sequence in supply scares, and such releases have historically capped rallies only when sized and repeated, not as one-off exchanges framed as operational rather than market-tightening responses. Statements from the White House about ending the conflict quickly or controlling the strait fall into a familiar category of rhetoric that desks have learned to discount until matched by concrete diplomatic or military movement; the follow-ons that matter are any change in tanker traffic and insurance rates through Hormuz, further inventory releases, and whether the backwardation keeps building.