CommoditiesIn plain sightTuesday 29 September 2026, 09:35
Spot Brent rose 48% in three weeks, and it was not the year’s high
Physical crude went from $88 to $131 a barrel between 25 August and 15 September.
By The Notebook Desk
Spot Brent, the price of a physical cargo of North Sea crude, went from $88.24 a barrel on 25 August to $130.80 on 15 September: up 48% in three weeks. It was still not the high for the year. Spot Brent closed at $138.21 on 7 April. By 22 September it was back at $114.89.
The year has had two oil shocks, not one, and between them the price fell below where it started. That is easy to miss when the news follows only the latest jump.
Two shocks in one year
The daily prices from the US Energy Information Administration tell the story. Spot Brent was $71.32 on 27 February. The first shock took it to $138.21 on 7 April, the highest since July 2008. Then it fell by half. On 2 July it was $68.53, below its price before the war.
The second shock began in July. By 15 September the price had risen 91% from its July low. Before this year, the last time spot Brent closed above $130.80 was on 8 March 2022, in the first weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Two swings of that size in six months are rare. They show a market that has no spare supply to absorb bad news, and that falls just as fast when the news improves.
The gap with US crude
The clearest sign of where the shortage lies is the gap between Brent and West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark. Brent prices crude that moves by sea, the market that Gulf oil supplies. WTI prices crude produced and refined in the United States, far from the Strait of Hormuz.
In 2025, Brent cost on average $3.58 a barrel more than WTI. On 27 February the gap was $4.36. It widened to $23.63 on 7 April. By 2 July it had closed completely: WTI was $1.20 above Brent that day. On 25 August, before the September jump, it was $4.34. On 15 September the gap was back at $23.78, and on 22 September it was $18.48.
So each shock hit sea-borne crude far harder than US crude. US oil still follows world prices, but a blocked strait on the other side of the world touches it less directly. The gap works as a rough gauge of the Hormuz premium in the price.
Why the price swings so much
The strait carries more oil than any other route. In 2024, according to the EIA, flows through Hormuz averaged 20 million barrels a day, about a fifth of the world’s oil consumption. Pipelines in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates could carry only about 2.6 million barrels a day around it.
Stocks are also thin. The EIA’s September outlook estimates that global oil inventories have fallen by 400 million barrels so far this year. It put the average Brent price in August at $91 a barrel, $7 more than in July. With little oil in storage, each piece of news about the strait moves the price of the next cargo a long way. Futures rose again on 28 September, after the US rejected an Iranian proposal to reopen it.
The same outlook expects Brent to average about $90 a barrel in the second half of 2026 and $74 in 2027, as production recovers and stocks are rebuilt. It was finished on 3 September, before the latest jump.
What to watch
The gap between Brent and WTI is the simplest daily test. If it narrows back towards the $4 or so of February and August, the market is pricing an end to the Hormuz premium. The EIA’s next outlook, due on 6 October, will be the first to include the September jump.
Disclosure
This is analysis and opinion, not investment advice.