London, May 15, 2026 – Oil headed for a weekly gain as the crucial Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed, with efforts to end the war in limbo and disruptions that have upended global markets set to linger.
Brent crude climbed to trade near $107 a barrel, and futures are up about 6% this week. West Texas Intermediate was above $102.
President Donald Trump has made conflicting remarks on Hormuz, telling Fox News the US doesn’t need the waterway open, and then later saying “we want the straits open” while sitting alongside Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing.
The war has driven global oil inventories down at a record pace, and the market will remain “severely undersupplied” until October even if hostilities end next month, the International Energy Agency said this week.
US data released on Tuesday underscored how the conflict is reigniting inflation, piling domestic pressure on Trump ahead of the midterm elections in November.
Trump and Xi are meeting again after their Thursday summit, where they spoke about the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz, according to an official from the White House.
The US leader said Xi likes the idea of buying more American oil, though China’s official readout did not include energy among the topics they discussed. It did say the Middle East was addressed.
A ceasefire has been in place since early April, despite a series of flareups, but Washington and Tehran appear to be making little progress toward resolving their differences. Trump recently said the truce was on “massive life support,” while deriding the Iranian response to his proposal to end the war.
“I think the path of least resistance very near term for prices remains more to the bullish side as we continue to see crude oil and fuel inventories contract,” said Dennis Kissler, senior vice president for trading at BOK Financial Securities Inc.
“Since the current agreements are far apart, escalation of tensions are more likely than not.”
A US naval blockade of Iran’s ports remains in place, while the waters in the region continue to be treacherous for mariners. A commercial vessel was seized by unauthorized personnel at the entrance to the strait on Thursday and taken into Iranian waters.
Only a trickle of tankers have exited the Persian Gulf since the conflict started, sapping vital flows of energy including natural gas to global customers.
Trading house Vitol Group is offering Iraqi crude — outside Hormuz — to buyers, in a sign that some cargoes may have successfully made it out of the gulf.
Flows of crude and fuels through the Strait of Hormuz fell by almost 6 million barrels a day in the first quarter after hostilities began in late February, according to the Energy Information Administration said this week. (Bloomberg)
