CommoditiesMarket noteFriday 9 October 2026, 00:55
Oil prices rose 4% after Trump ruled out an Iran strike before the midterms
Brent closed up 4% at $104.28 after Trump pledged no attack on Iran before 3 November. As long as oil is above $70, we read such pledges as talk.
By The Notebook Desk
Oil prices rose on Thursday even after President Donald Trump promised not to attack Iran before the midterm elections. “We will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the Midterm Elections to be held in the United States on November 3rd,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. He said the two countries were having “productive discussions”.
Brent crude futures dipped briefly after the post, then closed up 4% at $104.28 a barrel, NBC News reported. West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark, closed up 3.6% at $91.49. Diesel futures rose 6% in European trading.
Why oil prices ignored the pledge
The pledge answered reports that the White House was weighing strikes on Iran before 3 November. It said nothing about the war that is already under way, and that is what sets the price of oil.
Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the route for about a fifth of the world’s oil before the war, is still a small fraction of what it was. From 28 September to 4 October an average of fewer than 23 ships a day passed through, according to MarineTraffic data cited by NBC News. Before the war began on 28 February, hundreds did.
The main way round Hormuz is under attack too. Saudi Arabia pipes crude across the kingdom to its Red Sea coast, away from the strait. Yemen’s Houthis, who are backed by Iran, say they are enforcing a blockade of Saudi ships, and this week they claimed missile and drone attacks on Riyadh’s main airport and on military bases in the south-west of the kingdom, the Associated Press reported. The Saudi-led coalition said it shot down a ballistic missile north of Riyadh. Saudi and allied Yemeni forces are fighting to retake the coast around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which the Houthis seized about a month ago.
The physical market is tighter still
Futures are only part of the picture. Spot Brent, the price of North Sea cargoes for prompt delivery, was $125.44 a barrel on 6 October, the latest figure from the Energy Information Administration. That is well above the futures price. Buyers who need oil now are paying far more than those who can wait.
Spot Brent was $71.32 on 27 February, the last trading day before the war. It peaked at $138.21 on 7 April.
The $70 line
The market has shown once what peace looks like in the price. In early July, while a ceasefire between the US and Iran held, spot Brent fell to $68.53, below its pre-war level, as we wrote on 30 September. It was last below $70 on 6 July. Then the ceasefire broke down, and by 23 July the price was back above $100.
That gives a simple test, and it is ours. For as long as oil stays above $70, we read the talk of talks and pledges as just that, talk, and the conflict as still hot. A price near $70 would mean traders believe that ships are moving through Hormuz again and that Saudi exports are safe. A price above $100 says they believe neither.
What it costs at the pump
The war has reached American voters through fuel prices, a month before the midterms. The average price of regular petrol (gasoline) was $4.35 a gallon on 5 October, 48% higher than in the week before the war, according to the EIA. Diesel was $6.20, up 63%. On 21 September it reached $6.53, a record, well above the $5.81 high of June 2022.
Diesel matters most for the economy. It moves goods by truck and rail and runs farm machines, so its price feeds into the cost of almost everything else.
What to watch next
The EIA’s next weekly pump prices come out early next week. Watch the gap between spot and futures prices for Brent: if it narrows, cargoes are getting easier to find. And watch Hormuz traffic. A pledge not to strike Iran changes neither. Ships moving through the strait would.
Disclosure
This is analysis and opinion, not investment advice.