US official says there is progress between Oman and Iran on the Strait of Hormuz, and we expect a deal soon

• Once a deal is announced to restore commercial shipping without impediments, US will lift blockade of Iranian ports.
• US actions will continue to be performance based-and tied to Iran's implementation of its commitments.

The Strait of Hormuz carries a large share of global seaborne crude, and episodes of this kind have tended to trade through the freight and insurance channel first: war-risk premia, tanker rates and rerouting costs move before any physical supply disruption materialises, and unwind in the same order. De-escalation headlines in past Hormuz episodes have historically pulled the geopolitical premium out of front-month crude and steepened or flattened timespreads depending on how much actual barrels were at risk versus headline risk alone, with gold and the yen giving back haven bids on the same logic. The distinction worth drawing is between a framework announcement and implementation: the sequencing here is explicitly performance-based, with the blockade lifting tied to Iranian compliance, which is the structure that has historically produced two-way headline risk as each side tests the other's commitments. Oman's role as intermediary follows its established pattern as the accepted back-channel between Washington and Tehran, which lends the process more credibility than a unilateral claim but no guarantee of durability. The follow-ons are confirmation from the Iranian side, any movement in war-risk insurance quotes and tanker fixtures through the strait, and whether energy infrastructure in the region sees further incidents before signatures. As with prior rounds of Gulf de-escalation, the premium tends to come out faster than it went in, and re-enter just as quickly on any compliance dispute.