CRUDE WRAP: WTI (Z6) FUTURES SETTLE USD 2.21 HIGHER AT 88.74/BBL; BRENT (F7) SETTLES USD 3.06 HIGHER AT 95.82/BBL

The crude complex saw slight gains, as US-Iran updates were less conducive to improving relations. A modest bounce was seen in the European morning after the IRGC announced that two crude-carrying vessels had been struck in Hormuz, before further upside followed when US President Trump said “we don’t need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since passed”. The President also directed VP Vance to focus entirely on domestic issues. Vance had been seen as the potential face of a peace agreement with Iran, so the comment potentially implies the Rezaei meeting will not go ahead. As a reminder, the WSJ reported around Wednesday’s settlement that there had been preliminary discussions for Vance to meet Rezaei. Meanwhile, Fars reported that explosions were heard at several points in Sirik, eastern Hormozgan province, Iran over the past few hours and sources stated the sounds were caused by warning shots fired at offending ships. However, IRNA then reported that explosions were due to a military strike.

In the weekly EIA data, delayed by a day due to Veterans Day, crude, distillates and gasoline all saw unexpected builds, while crude production rose 10k BPD W/W to 14.013mln BPD.

For the record, WTI traded between USD 85.13-88.69/bbl, while Brent hit a low of USD 91.19/bbl vs. a later high of USD 96.16/bbl around settlement.

Sessions where crude rallies on Hormuz escalation while simultaneously absorbing bearish inventory data have a familiar shape: the geopolitical premium overwhelms the fundamentals, and the EIA builds across crude, distillates and gasoline, ordinarily a softer signal for the flat price, get treated as noise until the headlines stop. Tanker strikes in the strait are the recurring template here; in comparable episodes the first reaction runs through the front of the curve and into time spreads, with freight and war-risk insurance repricing before any physical disruption is actually confirmed. The distinguishing question, as ever, is whether vessels struck becomes cargoes delayed, since prior episodes that stayed at the headline level saw the premium bleed out over subsequent sessions, while those that touched actual flows held. On the diplomatic track, the pattern with this administration has been abrupt alternation between escalation and deal talk, so the dismissal of the Vance channel reads as posture until confirmed by whether the reported meeting is formally abandoned; the tell is follow-through from the Iranian side rather than further rhetoric. The conflicting Iranian reporting on the Hormozgan explosions, warning shots versus a military strike, is the kind of ambiguity that has historically kept the bid under the complex into the next session pending clarification. The watch items are the usual ones for this setup: tanker tracking and insurance rates through the strait, any official confirmation of what was hit, and whether the curve structure, rather than just the flat price, holds the move.