CRUDE WRAP: WTI (Z6) SETTLES USD 1.51 LOWER AT 101.76/BBL; BRENT (Z6) SETTLES USD 0.96 LOWER AT USD 110.74/BBL

The crude complex was lower, albeit in choppy trade. Fresh catalysts were light on Monday, with plenty of macro risk events due later in the week, although focus remains firmly on geopolitics. Over the weekend, US President Trump said it was "getting to be decision time" on whether to strike a deal with Tehran or resume attacks. CNN reported on Monday that US forces in the Middle East are prepared to launch major strikes against Iran within 96 hours of Trump's approval. Nonetheless, benchmarks came under pressure after the Saudi Foreign Ministry said a visit to Tehran by representatives of the Mecca Agreement countries is part of efforts to de-escalate tensions between the parties to the crisis. This came despite the Houthis saying overnight that they had targeted pumping stations on Saudi Arabia's East-West crude pipeline with drones and attacked King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, although Saudi Arabia did not immediately confirm the attacks. A senior Iranian official reportedly said talks in Tehran with Mecca Pact members exclude the nuclear issue; Iran will not discuss its nuclear programme until the US meets Tehran's demands. In the US, crude stocks in the SPR fell to 282.6mln bbls last week, the lowest level since 1982. For the record, WTI traded between USD 100.33-103.13/bbl and Brent between USD 109.22-112.20/bbl.

Sessions like this are the standard pattern in a geopolitically-driven crude tape: choppy, headline-led trade with the risk premium oscillating on each diplomatic or military development rather than on fundamentals. The established sequence in past Gulf escalation episodes is that supply disruption headlines, here the claimed Houthi strikes on Saudi pipeline infrastructure, bid the premium up, while de-escalation signals, here the Saudi readout on the Mecca Agreement talks, unwind it; the net direction tends to follow whichever side of that ledger the next confirmed event lands on. A recurring tell is whether reported attacks on Saudi infrastructure are confirmed by Riyadh: unconfirmed Houthi claims have historically had a short half-life in the price, whereas confirmation of damage to pumping or export capacity has sustained the bid. The split worth noting is between WTI and Brent, with the wider premium in Brent reflecting the Middle East supply exposure, and between the front of the curve, where disruption risk is priced, and the back, which has tended to lag in these episodes. The SPR sitting at multi-decade lows narrows the policy buffer against a supply shock, a constraint that has mattered in past debates over release timing. The calendar noted in the wrap and the stated strike-readiness window keep event risk elevated, making headline flow rather than inventory data the near-term driver.