CRUDE WRAP: WTI (V6) SETTLES USD 4.46 HIGHER AT USD 90.22/BBL; BRENT (X6) SETTLES USD 4.16 HIGHER AT USD 94.65/BBL

Direct military exchange between the US and Iran with strikes reported near Gulf energy infrastructure is the template that historically embeds the largest and fastest geopolitical premium into crude: the channel is freight, insurance and the threat to Hormuz transit rather than any confirmed loss of supply, and war-risk rates on tankers plus the prompt spread typically move before flat price settles the argument. Reports of projectiles hitting supertankers in the Strait are the tell that separates a rhetorical premium from a physical one; in past episodes, benchmarks have tended to hold gains only where shipping or export infrastructure was actually impaired, and to bleed the premium back over subsequent sessions where flows continued uninterrupted. The punchy rhetoric on both sides, with each threatening a larger response, fits the familiar escalation-then-de-escalation sequence in which the second and third headline waves matter more than the first. Worth watching are confirmed tanker traffic through Hormuz, any disruption at the named Gulf facilities, and the shape of the curve, since backwardation deepening at the front is the standard signature of a genuine supply scare versus a headline-driven spike. The weekly private inventory print lands after-hours against this backdrop, where a draw would compound the bid and a build would test how much of the move is positioning rather than barrels.