CRUDE WRAP: WTI (U6) SETTLES USD 2.02 LOWER AT USD 81.25/BBL; BRENT (V6) SETTLES USD 1.91 LOWER AT USD 87.07/BBL

The crude complex was lower on Thursday in choppy trade, amid light headline newsflow. As alluded to, it was typical summer trading conditions today, with very limited news and choppy price action as Middle East updates even took a back seat. Overall, desks await the next breakthrough or escalation, as currently it very much seems to be in a holding pattern until newsflow dictates otherwise. Despite the lack of updates, Iran reiterated Tehran-Muscat talks are ongoing and progressing positively, having achieved progress on several levels. However, on the other side, the Strait of Hormuz authority rejected US claims and said the waterway remained blocked until Iran's conditions are met. For the record, WTI traded between USD 80.09-83.30/bbl and Brent USD 85.85-89.07/bbl ahead of a quiet day of scheduled risk events on Friday.

Sessions of this kind, low-volume, range-bound trade in a thin summer tape with headline flow paused, have historically resolved only when the underlying geopolitical driver reasserts itself, with range breaks in such conditions tending to be sharper than average because positioning is stale and liquidity shallow. The operative distinction here is between the two competing claims on the Strait of Hormuz: Tehran characterising talks as progressing while the waterway authority publicly maintains it remains blocked. When transit risk through Hormuz has featured in past episodes, the transmission channel is freight rates, war-risk insurance premia and prompt spreads, with the front of the curve and Brent-WTI differential moving before flat price does, since roughly a fifth of seaborne crude transits the strait and the physical squeeze registers in timespreads first. The holding-pattern framing matters: in comparable standoffs, official statements from negotiating parties have tended to soften before hardliners or parallel actors reintroduce escalation risk, so the sequencing of rhetoric versus actual tanker traffic data is the tell. Worth noting that a quiet calendar of scheduled risk events removes the usual data-driven catalysts, leaving the complex wholly hostage to headline flow, a setup that has historically favoured gap risk over the weekend. Brent's premium holding near six dollars is consistent with geopolitical risk pricing sitting disproportionately in the waterborne marker.