CRUDE WRAP: WTI (X6) SETTLES USD 0.95 HIGHER AT 95.09/BBL; BRENT (Z6) SETTLES USD 0.37 HIGHER AT 106.06/BBL

Geopolitically driven sessions of this kind have historically carried the same fingerprint: the bid sits in the prompt spread and in freight and insurance costs rather than in outright flat price conviction, with moves prone to violent reversals on any credible de-escalation headline. The Hormuz dimension matters mechanically: threats to tanker transit and vessel losses have in past episodes of this kind repriced crude via the risk premium embedded in timespreads and product cracks, not through immediate physical shortfall, and the premium has tended to bleed out once flows prove uninterrupted. The Brent-WTI differential is the tell to watch in this setup, since seaborne disruption and shipping risk widen Brent's premium to landlocked US grades before it moves WTI itself. The IEA revision cuts both ways: downgrades of this size to demand projections alongside a steep supply contraction signal have historically framed a deficit narrative that emboldens the long side but leaves the complex hostage to whether the disruption materialises in actual loadings data. The immediate follow-ons are the after-hours private inventory print, delayed a day on the US holiday, tanker tracking through the Strait, and any shift in Riyadh or Washington's tone on the Houthi campaign. As a settlement wrap rather than a decision, the signal is the persistence of the premium, not its size on the day.