[MARKET ANALYSIS] Crude edges higher amid US-Iran uncertainty; gold remains subdued following Wednesday’s surge in the USD and global yields

• WTI Nov and Brent Dec futures are modestly firmer after paring overnight losses, with the complex caught between a lack of progress on US-Iran diplomacy and reports that Washington rejected Tehran’s Hormuz proposal, while Iran said another round of messages and clarifications took place via Qatar. Focus also remains on the potential US diesel export ban, although the White House denied reports that the Trump administration is preparing a 90-day ban. Morgan Stanley warned that such a move, while not its base case, could have significant implications and potentially raise gasoline prices as barred diesel exports fill storage and force refiners to cut runs. The bank estimated refiners could need to reduce runs by around 2mln BPD, in turn cutting gasoline supply by roughly 650k BPD.
• WTI trades around USD 92.50/bbl within a USD 91.23-92.87/bbl range, while Brent trades above USD 98.00/bbl within a USD 97.09-98.83/bbl range. Dutch TTF is firmer, with the contract trading within a EUR 73.39-75.04/MWh range. The Trump-Xi meeting could provide some impact amid reports of potentially reducing or removing China’s 15% tariff on US LNG. (Full Trump-Xi primer available on the Newsquawk headline feed).
• Precious metals remain subdued following Wednesday’s surge in the USD and global yields, with hawkish Fed rhetoric and strong US data continuing to weigh on the complex. Spot gold trades towards the bottom of a USD 4,273-4,303/oz range, with the 100 DMA at USD 4,309/oz. Spot silver similarly trades around the lower end of a USD 63.75-64.55/oz range.
• Base metals are mixed/rangebound against a subdued risk backdrop, with copper also digesting news that BHP suspended operations at its Escondida mine in Chile following an accident. 3M LME copper resides in a USD 14,575.08-14,677.78/t range.

Crude sessions of this kind, where a geopolitical risk premium is doing the work in the absence of fundamental news, have historically been hostage to the next diplomatic headline rather than to positioning or technicals; premiums built on stalled US-Iran channels and Hormuz rhetoric have tended to bleed out quickly when back-channel progress is signalled, and to spike asymmetrically when supply-route risk is revived. The diesel export ban thread is the more tradable mechanism: talk of US export restrictions on refined products has surfaced in past episodes of product-market tightness, and the sequence has usually run from media report to official denial to crack-spread widening while the policy remains live in the market's mind. The transmission channel named here is specific: blocked diesel exports backing up into domestic storage, refinery run cuts, and reduced gasoline output, which is a products-spread story more than a flat-price one and would show first in distillate and gasoline cracks relative to crude. In metals, the pattern of the dollar and real yields setting the tone for gold is well established, and hawkish Fed rhetoric combined with firm US data has repeatedly been the configuration that caps rallies until the rate impulse fades. The base metals side is a standard supply-disruption digestion at Escondida, an asset whose interruptions have historically tightened concentrate markets only when outages extend beyond the initial headline. Worth watching next are any concrete movement on the LNG tariff question out of the Trump-Xi track, follow-through on the export ban reporting after the denial, and whether gold's retreat holds at the noted moving average or re-engages with the rate story.