Notes on a 'see-how-it-goes' crude market

As we enter the sixth week of the Iran War, extreme levels of volatility continue to persist in the oil futures market. As a recap, given how things stand at the time of publishing this blog, Brent is up by around 6% on the past five sessions, 20% on the month, and 80% from three months ago. 

With huge price fluctuations and swings on each social media post, insult, threat or potential morsel of de-escalation from Washington and Tehran, price modelling and guestimates are proving very difficult to work on. 

As the Oilholic said in a recent interview on the BBC, this is very much a 'see-how-it-goes' market, with a risk premium baked in even if the crisis were to end tomorrow, and one marked by severe oil shipping 'deliverability issues' caused by disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. 

Here's more on those deliverability issues in yours truly's op-ed for Forbes and why WTI futures traded at a premium to Brent last week. The Brent-WTI spread turned on its head on Thursday (April 2) with the global benchmark Brent trading at a discount to its US counterpart for the first time in four years and only the fifth such instance since 2010, as Asian buyers queued up to pay a premium for non-Middle Eastern crude, with a sizeable volume of it coming from the states. 

Overall, the economic pain of all this volatility is being acutely felt in emerging Asian markets, particularly reliant on Middle Eastern crude. 

We have tales of four-day working weeks being introduced from Pakistan to the Philippines, several Asian air carriers (e.g. AirAsia, Cathay Pacific, Korean Air, Air India, etc.) raising passenger surcharges and fuel buying restrictions in various markets. 

All of this is coming to Europe pretty soon if this continues, and perhaps in some ways already has via consumer sentiment surveys. As for a potential end of the conflict coming sometime soon with a fresh threat / deadline from US President Donald Trump - this blogger would say that a six-week conclusion from Feb 28 has been widely discussed around the market for some time now. 

It's the time it would take for West African or American crude cargoes to arrive in Asia (double of what it typically takes a Middle Eastern tanker to get to Singapore) to relieve short-term pressures. Can it happen? Will it happen? Iran and the US may be far apart but channels of communication are certainly open. 

On the latest escalation and de-escalation with Tuesday's deadline from Trump both WTI and Brent are down by around 2% to 5% at 22:48 pm BST, with WTI's premium still well and truly intact. So, the only thing to (still) say here is - we'll see how it goes.

That's all for the moment folks in these crazy times for the crude market. More market musings to follow soon. Keep reading, keep it here, keep it 'crude'! 

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To email: journalist_gsharma@yahoo.co.uk  

© Gaurav Sharma 2026. Photo I: Oil pump jack building block model at the AVEVA World 2023 Conference, Moscone Center, San Francisco, US © Gaurav Sharma, October 2023. Photo II: Gaurav Sharma, Energy Analyst at Oilholics Synonymous © BBC, March 2026.