finance
Brent Crude Falls More Than 20 Percent in a Month as Hormuz Shipping Resumes
Brent crude prices dropped from triple digits to around $72 a barrel after the Strait of Hormuz reopened to commercial traffic. OilPrice.com reported that an interim U.S.-Iran agreement and recent strikes have left shipping under daily quotas with elevated insurance costs.
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Brent crude has fallen more than 20 percent in the past month, sliding from triple digits during the worst of the Iran war to around $72 a barrel. WTI crude trades near $70. The Strait of Hormuz, which carries roughly a fifth of the world's seaborne oil, was effectively closed for nearly four months after the U.S. and Iran mined the waterway, fired on tankers, and restricted passage.
The two sides signed an interim memorandum of understanding on June 17 to reopen the strait to toll-free traffic over a 60-day window.
25 and 28, Iran and the U.S. traded fresh strikes: drones hit a container ship, the U.S. retaliated, and Tehran struck a vessel carrying Qatari oil. Both sides agreed to pause ahead of new talks in Doha. Shipping now moves under a daily quota system run by Iran's Revolutionary Guard navy.
Hundreds of vessels remain stranded in the Gulf, and war-risk insurance premiums stay many times above pre-war levels.
Halliburton both recorded direct financial losses during the conflict, but their core Gulf drilling and LNG operations stand to recover once output normalizes. Frontline's record profits stemmed from the strait's closure rather than its reopening, leaving the tanker operator most exposed to falling rates.
