CRUDE WRAP: WTI (X6) SETTLES USD 3.44 HIGHER AT USD 101.41/BBL; BRENT (Z6) SETTLES USD 3.94 HIGHER AT USD 109.86/BBL

Sessions of this kind, where an unconfirmed strike report against Gulf export infrastructure is the dominant driver, follow a well-worn sequence: an initial risk-premium spike on the headline, a partial fade once no confirmation or physical disruption emerges, and a residual bid that persists until either damage is verified or the story is formally walked back. The distinction that matters is between attacks on transit and processing chokepoints, where a large share of the region's spare export capacity is concentrated and past episodes have sustained a premium for days or weeks, and incidents that leave flows untouched, where the premium has historically bled out within a session or two. The East-West pipeline is precisely the kind of asset that reroutes around Strait of Hormuz risk, which is why the market prices reports against it more aggressively than against generic regional noise. The refinery outage in Russia adds a genuine supply-side leg to the move, and repeated drone strikes on Russian refining capacity have tended to tighten product markets, particularly distillates, more durably than headline-driven crude spikes. The US legislative pushback on the Russia diesel arrangement is a sanctions-structure story rather than a flow story at this stage, but bills of this type have in the past set the direction of enforcement even before passage. The rig count is a slow-moving supply signal and was broadly flat, leaving the geopolitical verification calendar, confirmation or denial of damage, and any Saudi or Iranian official follow-through as the operative tells for whether the premium holds into next week.