Hormuz Traffic Nears Zero, Yet Brent Lags Below $90

The Strait of Hormuz has seen a severe slowdown in traffic over the weekend, with Kpler recording only five commodity-vessel transits on Saturday and none registered on Sunday. This is down from 31 during the previous weekend.

Despite this disruption, Brent crude prices remain below $90, having risen as high as $89.40 on Monday before falling back to $89.20 by 02:29 GMT. WTI reached $82.83.

The physical oil market remains tight, with the IEA estimating a 1.8 million-barrel-per-day global supply deficit in the third quarter and observed inventories falling by 69 million barrels in July. This is a significant drop from pre-conflict levels.