Brent Hits $110 as Hormuz Attacks Lift Diesel Costs

Brent crude touched $110 a barrel on Friday, the first time since May, as Iran stepped up attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Futures then eased to settle at $109.86, a gain of 3.7 percent.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate rose 3.5 percent to $101.41. WTI added more than 10 percent for the week and Brent gained nearly 5 percent, but the bill that lands at the pump is diesel, which still averaged $6.33 a gallon.

Wright Says the Crude Problem Is Mostly Handled

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told the 25th WPC Energy Congress in Riyadh on Oct. 12 that Gulf crude flows had recovered to 80 to 90 percent of prewar levels, with up to 14 million barrels a day moving, a figure that includes oil sent around the strait by pipeline. Ship-tracking firm Kpler put crude through Hormuz itself at 9.4 million barrels a day for the week ended Wednesday, about 70 percent of the average before the Iran war.

Those two numbers describe different routes. Wright was counting barrels that no longer have to run the gauntlet. Kpler was counting the waterway. On the product side he was blunt. Shipments of diesel, jet fuel and gasoline out of the Gulf, he said, were still only 25 to 35 percent of prewar levels, and diesel prices remained “very high.”

The challenge is still here and the challenge is still ahead of us.

Chris Wright, U.S. energy secretary, 25th WPC Energy Congress in Riyadh

He said the crude problem is still there but mostly handled, and that U.S. refineries are running at record rates. He also said China had cut refined-fuel exports, including a halt during October. Crude can still leave the Gulf. The shortage that sets the pump price is the fuel that used to leave with it.

The International Energy Agency recorded about 20 million barrels a day of crude and products through Hormuz in 2025, including about 5 million barrels a day of oil products. That product stream is the one Wright says has not come back.

Nine Attacks Since Sunday Sank a Container Ship

At least nine tankers and cargo ships have been hit in the strait since Sunday, as Iran tries to choke exports through one of the world’s main oil chokepoints. U.S. Central Command said Iran sank the Singapore-flagged container ship GFS Pride on Wednesday. Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority said all 21 crew were evacuated.

Three FALSE Iranian claims in the past 24 hours:

🚫 CLAIM: The IRGC has continued to falsely claim control of the Strait of Hormuz.

✅ FACT: The United States and regional partners control the strait as commercial vessels continue to transit despite unwarranted IRGC… pic.twitter.com/rgpeZ95dvU

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) October 15, 2026

The International Maritime Organization said the week’s attacks left three seafarers injured and two missing. UK Maritime Trade Operations logged more than 20 vessels, most of them tankers, hit in Hormuz, the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman since Oct. 1. Maritime trackers counted 26 vessels struck this month, the most dangerous stretch of the war for shipping.

THE WEEK ON THE WATER

• GFS Pride: The 2,824-TEU feeder, built in 2008 and managed from the UAE, caught fire and sank after a projectile strike, the second vessel to go down since the war began on Feb. 28.
• Iran’s account: The Revolutionary Guard said the ship hit a mine on an unauthorised route. Maritime security firm Marisks said it saw no independent evidence of a mine.
• The human tally: The IMO has counted 106 confirmed incidents and 24 seafarer deaths since the conflict began, with two sailors missing and 12 injured this month.

Oil is still moving under U.S. escort. That is why a clip of packed anchorages, passed around as proof the strait is sealed, does not match the weekly flow. Kpler’s 9.4 million barrels a day is a cut, not a closure, and it is the product tankers that have stepped back hardest.

Why U.S. Diesel Is Still $6.33 a Gallon

AAA put the Friday national average of $6.33 a gallon on diesel, 73 percent above the $3.65 average a year earlier. Regular gasoline averaged $4.33. Diesel’s record this cycle was $6.53 on Sept. 22. The Institute for the Study of War notes U.S. diesel stayed under $4 a gallon until the Iran war opened on Feb. 28, which is the break in the U.S. pump series.

That does not make the Ukraine war a sideshow for fuel. Russian diesel exports fell from about 810,000 barrels a day in 2025 to about 140,000 in September, a drop of about 670,000 barrels a day, while Middle East diesel exports are down by a larger amount. Both wars take barrels out of the same tight pool. Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group, said that aside from a recession that hammers consumption, only a durable end to the conflicts in the Arabian Gulf and between Russia and Ukraine would put prices on a sharp downward path.

THE THREE HITS ON FUEL

• Hormuz crude: Kpler has flows at 9.4 million barrels a day, about 70 percent of the prewar average, for the week ended Wednesday.
• Gulf products: Wright put diesel, jet and gasoline shipments out of the Gulf at 25 to 35 percent of prewar levels.
• Russian diesel: Ukraine’s strikes have cut Moscow’s product exports, and Kyiv said on Oct. 15 that the pause on refinery attacks is over.

President Donald Trump announced a deal for Russia to release 300,000 tonnes of diesel at once, about 2.25 million barrels, with later tranches of 500,000 tonnes in November and 1 million tonnes after that. Analysts have called that a few days of U.S. demand. G7 governments pledged 100 million barrels of oil and products, much of it the remainder of a March emergency release. Distillate stocks in the United States fell 2.5 million barrels in the week ended Oct. 9 and sit 12 percent below the five-year average, the Energy Information Administration said.

FRIDAY’S SPLIT BETWEEN CRUDE AND FUEL

Trend-following funds spent the third quarter moving from short to heavily long in gasoil, Kpler Insight said, after gasoil prices gained 88.7 percent in that quarter. The paper market is trading the fuel shortage Wright described, not the crude recovery he claimed.

A Houthi Missile Headed for the Yanbu Terminal

Saudi Arabia intercepted several missiles fired over the Red Sea on Friday, including one heading toward the oil export terminal at Yanbu, a military spokesman said. Three drones were also destroyed in Riyadh and the south. Yanbu is the Red Sea end of the East-West crude line, the main bypass around Hormuz, so a hit there would close the route Wright is counting on.

Kpler said East-West Pipeline flows recovered to 5.8 million barrels a day after the Sept. 10 attack on the line, and it expects Saudi crude supply to average around 9 million barrels a day in October. Fujairah crude loadings hit a record 2.62 million barrels a day in September as the UAE pushed more oil around the strait. Those bypasses are why Saudi barrels filling the export gap have kept regional crude shipments closer to prewar levels than the strait numbers imply.

The Houthis have kept firing. They hit an Aramco administrative building in Dhahran on Tuesday, the kingdom’s energy ministry said, starting a fire. On Oct. 10 they attacked Riyadh’s international airport, killing 12 people and injuring more than 300. Wright called those strikes cowardly and repeated Washington’s support for Saudi Arabia.

#Statement | Ministry of Energy: Saudi Aramco Administrative Building in Dhahran Targeted, No Injuries Reported. pic.twitter.com/BQ7u9Km5Zp

— وزارة الطاقة (@MoEnergy_Saudi) October 13, 2026

Gulf Coast Inventories Fell 8.6 Million Barrels

The EIA said commercial crude inventories fell 8.6 million barrels to 415.6 million in the week ended Oct. 9, 3 percent below the five-year average. Analysts had looked for a small build. Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank, called it the largest draw since February, partly from production shut-ins caused by Hurricane Isaias.

HURRICANE ISAIAS IN THE EIA NUMBERS

• Gulf Coast stocks: PADD 3 inventories dropped 9.2 million barrels, more than the national draw, because other regions added oil.
• Output: U.S. crude production fell 300,000 barrels a day to 13.7 million, with more than 70 percent of offshore Gulf output shut in by that Friday.
• Products: Distillate stocks fell 2.5 million barrels; gasoline stocks rose 3.5 million barrels.
• The reserve: The Strategic Petroleum Reserve was unchanged at 283 million barrels, the first week with no SPR movement since wartime releases began.

Most offshore production was back by Wednesday. The inventory print still landed in the same session as the Hormuz attacks, so WTI, which prices U.S. barrels, jumped harder for the week than Brent. Kpler has put cumulative Middle East crude and condensate outages above 2 billion barrels, with about 5 million barrels a day still offline as of Oct. 6.

Zelenskyy Puts Russian Refinery Strikes Back On

Trump posted on Oct. 11 that an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine was effective immediately and that both parties had agreed. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv supported the idea and was waiting for details. Russia kept hitting Ukrainian power and gas sites, including a combined heat and power plant in Kharkiv.

Zelenskyy told an interviewer on Oct. 15 that the block on attacking refineries was finished. “The block is out. We’re done,” he said. Russian regional officials said a mass drone attack hit the Rosneft refinery at Ryazan, about 200 kilometers south of Moscow, and set a fire. It was the first confirmed refinery strike after Trump’s truce post.

THE ENERGY CEASEFIRE, DAY BY DAY

1. Oct. 9: Trump announces a Russian diesel release of 300,000 tonnes. Zelenskyy calls it a gift to President Vladimir Putin. Ukraine says it hit refineries at Omsk and Ukhta.
2. Oct. 11: Trump declares an energy ceasefire on Truth Social. Zelenskyy says Ukraine agreed and that Russia must stop hitting its grid.
3. Oct. 12: Zelenskyy says Russia hit six energy sites and that “it is clear that Putin does not read Truth Social.”
4. Oct. 15: Zelenskyy lifts the refinery pause. Ryazan is hit. He had already tied any halt to a stop in Russian strikes on Ukrainian power.
5. Oct. 16: Brent tags $110 as Hormuz attacks and the failed truce hit the same session.

Trump later told reporters the two sides agreed because he said they agreed. Ukraine’s Defence Ministry has said its air strikes have destroyed more than half of Russia’s oil refining capacity. The IEA has put Russian refinery throughput near 4 million barrels a day for the rest of 2026. That is the diesel channel Washington wanted paused, and it is open again.

The White House has spent the Iran war trying to keep crude moving while arguing with Kyiv over refineries, a split that tracks Iran’s nuclear threats after the last oil jump. Crude barrels and refined fuel are not the same shortage, and the ceasefire treated them as if they were.

The $20 Million Ticket Through Hormuz

Brokers told the London market last week that additional war-risk premiums for tankers in the region now run at 6 to 10 percent of hull value, as much as $20 million for a single supertanker voyage. Marcus Baker, global head of marine at Marsh, has put the prewar going rate at about 0.25 percent. Howden Re has estimated war, terror and political violence claims at $2 billion to $3 billion, against $1.5 billion to $2 billion in annual global premium for that book.

BRS Shipbrokers has noted that premiums near 10 percent of hull value can be absorbed by crude carriers on high earnings, but they have deterred smaller product tankers from transiting Hormuz. That is the mechanism behind Wright’s 25 to 35 percent. A VLCC can still pay the ticket. A medium-range diesel ship often cannot. Owners have been offering tanker captains as much as $100,000 a month to make the run.

WHAT WE KNOW

• Friday’s print: Brent’s session high was $110, the close $109.86. WTI settled at $101.41. AAA diesel was $6.33 a gallon.
• The strait: Kpler has 9.4 million barrels a day of crude for the week ended Wednesday, about 70 percent of prewar. The GFS Pride sank on Wednesday.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• Saturday’s mines: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Navy said two oil tankers carrying about 2 million barrels caught fire after hitting naval mines in Hormuz. There was no independent confirmation.
• The diesel deal: Russia has not shown that damaged plants can deliver the volumes Trump described, and Kyiv is hitting refineries again.

Underwriters will price the mine claim before anyone confirms it. The $110 barrel is the number on the board. The $6.33 gallon is the one that has not given way.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on oil and fuel prices and is for information only. It is not investment, trading, or energy-buying advice, and it does not recommend any contract, stock, or fuel purchase. Readers who may act on energy prices should consult a licensed financial adviser or a qualified fuel-procurement professional before making decisions. Figures and statuses reflect the cited agency, exchange, and company data as of the dates named in the piece and can change with the next session, weekly report, or military statement.