[MARKET ANALYSIS] Crude holds a firmer bias amid US-Iran uncertainty alongside Trump’s Oman threats; metals subdued across the board

• WTI and Brent Oct futures hold a positive bias as constructive geopolitical headlines are trumped by escalatory rhetoric (see below). WTI trades towards the upper end of USD 84.64-85.68/bbl after topping yesterday’s USD 85.04/bbl high (vs low 51.50/bbl). Brent eyes USD 92/bbl in a current USD 90.64-61.85/bbl range after notching a USD 88.01-91.21/bbl range yesterday. Dutch TTF resides around recent ranges with gains of some 1.5% intraday, testing EUR 63/MWh to the upside in recent trade.
• Metals are subdued as elevated energy prices keep the USD underpinned and thus weigh on the complex. Spot gold pulled back to around USD 4,400/oz and earlier hit lows close to its 100 DMA (USD 4,385/oz) in a USD 4,386-4,436/oz intraday range at the time of writing. Spot silver remains within yesterday’s USD 64.75-66.56/oz range. Base metals are lower across the board. 3M LME copper tested support around the 14k/t mark this morning to trade in a current USD 13,996.18- 14,174.00/t range at the time of writing.
• In terms of the main geopolitical updates, US President Trump reiterated that the US remains in control of the Strait of Hormuz and said Iran wants to reach a deal, although he does not believe Tehran will agree to the terms, he considers necessary and stressed that he is not seeking an extension of the Iran MoU. Trump also criticized US-ally Oman, saying he does not think the country “behaves very well” and that the US could handle it very easily. Meanwhile, Pakistani journalist Anas Malick reported that an understanding to extend the US-Iran ceasefire under the Islamabad MoU has been reached and agreed in principle. Separately, UKMTO reported an incident in the Strait of Hormuz in which a vessel conducting an outbound transit was struck by an unknown projectile. This morning, Houthi rebels said they used multiple drones to attack an Aramco refinery in Saudi Arabia's Jazan region, although it is unclear if this is referring to a fresh attack or last week’s attack.

This is the standard shape of a Gulf-risk wrap: crude carries a geopolitical premium keyed to the Strait of Hormuz and Saudi infrastructure, while the same risk backdrop and firmer energy prices underpin the dollar and weigh on the metals complex. The pattern across comparable episodes is consistent: headline-driven spikes in WTI and Brent price the tail risk of transit disruption through the chokepoint rather than realised supply loss, and the premium tends to deflate quickly when no physical flows are actually interrupted. The split worth drawing is between rhetorical escalation and kinetic events: tanker strikes and refinery attacks have historically sustained a premium only when they repeat or hit export capacity, while threats against intermediaries such as Oman matter mainly as a signal on whether mediation channels stay open. The reported agreement-in-principle on extending the ceasefire framework sits against the escalatory rhetoric, and in past cycles that kind of contradictory tape has kept crude rangebound but bid on dips until one side of it resolves. Freight and war-risk insurance rates on Gulf transits are the cleaner tell than flat price, since they price disruption probability directly. The follow-ons are confirmation or denial of the extension understanding, any further UKMTO incident reports, and whether the claimed Jazan attack is fresh, as a repeated strike on Saudi refining would shift the pricing from transit risk to capacity loss.