Brent Slides Toward $96 as Persian Gulf Oil Flows Near Pre-War Levels

Brent crude was trading at $97.36 a barrel on Wednesday after sliding from more than $103 a day earlier, while West Texas Intermediate was at $89.57, according to OilPrice.com reporting published October 1. The turn followed fresh estimates that oil flows out of the Persian Gulf have nearly normalised, with Kpler putting shipments through the Strait of Hormuz close to 80% of pre-war levels and JPMorgan estimating as much as 98%. Goldman Sachs went further, putting total Middle East oil flows at 23.3 million barrels a day, the same rate as the 2025 average, with estimated Saudi exports more than doubling in September from August and rising above their 2025 average. That divergence matters for market structure: Iranian barrels are falling while other Gulf producers ship more, so the recovery is uneven even as headline volumes improve.

Strategists are not pricing a quick return to a comfortable balance. Standard Chartered, cited in a September 29 OilPrice.com analysis, raised its average Brent forecast for 2026 to $92 a barrel from $85.50 and WTI to $86 from $80.25, and lifted its 2027 Brent view to $89.50 from $77.50. The bank argued that seven months of conflict have left buffers extremely thin and that the energy system is shifting from efficiency back toward resilience, with governments and companies rebuilding inventories and keeping spare capacity, which raises costs and supports a higher long-term floor. Regional crude exports reached 15.5 million barrels a day in September, the highest since the conflict began, but that figure still relied partly on workarounds such as ship-to-ship transfers and the East-West pipeline running below full capacity, so whether the recovery is durable remains an open question.

Refined products tell a different story from crude. In an October 1 report, US President Donald Trump said a potential ban on diesel exports would have a negative impact on gasoline, while stopping short of ruling one out, after retail diesel had already reached record highs above $6.50 a gallon and regular gasoline averaged $4.43, compared with $4.08 a month earlier and $3.15 a year ago. Goldman Sachs analysts warned earlier in the week that an export ban would push domestic gasoline prices higher by forcing refiners to cut processing rates, and Russia has extended its own diesel export ban through October 31. Middle East refining capacity is constrained by strikes, much of it is limited by Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries, and US refiners are already running at maximum utilisation, so the product side of the barrel retains a risk premium even as crude softens.