[MARKET ANALYSIS] Oil futures extend on the prior day's resurgence as Houthi-Saudi tensions increase and questions remain regarding the Iran-Oman deal

WTI/Brent: WTI Sep'26 +0.7% / Brent Oct'26 +0.8%

• Oil prices extended on the prior day's resurgence after rallying by over 4% as tensions between the Houthis and Saudis grew, while questions remained regarding the Iran-Oman deal as Iranian reporting on the text of the deal pointed to unfavourable terms for the US and its regional allies. Furthermore, informed sources noted that the sound of two explosions heard in Qeshm late on Thursday was the confrontation with hostile targets at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz.

Gold: +0.3%

• Ekes mild gains but remains within the prior day's relatively tight parameters, with price action contained as participants await the looming key US jobs data.

Copper: +0.3%

• Kept afloat in sideways trade amid the mixed risk appetite in Asia and as Chinese trade data looms.

Rallies of this kind on Gulf escalation are a familiar pattern: crude reprices on the perceived probability of supply disruption at chokepoints rather than on barrels actually lost, and the Strait of Hormuz is the archetypal case, with the premium historically unwinding quickly when passage stays open and persisting only when tanker traffic, insurance rates or loading schedules are genuinely interrupted. The distinction worth drawing is between headline risk, which tends to lift the front of the curve and then fade, and physical disruption, which shows up in tanker rates, war-risk premiums and prompt timespreads tightening against the back end. The Iran-Oman dimension cuts the other way: any deal text that points toward sanctions relief or restored Iranian barrels is a supply-negative offset, so the two narratives pull against each other and the tape will trade whichever dominates. Houthi-Saudi friction on its own has tended to be a shorter-lived driver than direct state-on-state confrontation. The follow-ons that matter are confirmation or denial of the reported Hormuz incident, freight and insurance quotes out of the Gulf, and whether backwardation deepens at the front rather than a flat rise across the strip. Gold and copper sitting inside tight ranges ahead of the US jobs print and Chinese trade data is standard event-risk compression, with metals direction typically set by the releases rather than by the overnight geopolitics.