Oil Is Flowing From the Persian Gulf, but Prices Remain High. Why?

“You have this apparent contradiction,” said David Fyfe, chief economist for Argus Media, a commodities pricing firm. “Flows seem to have picked up. But it’s because the industry has said, ‘What the hell, let’s go for it,’ while the politicians have failed to reach any sort of an agreement.”

There are many different prices for oil, depending on where it’s coming from and when it’s to be delivered. The most commonly cited international price for oil, known as Brent, was $98 a barrel on Wednesday, reflecting how valuable traders think oil will be in December. That is more than the so-called futures price was, on average, in June, July or August, when a lot less crude was flowing out of the Persian Gulf.

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/01/business/energy-environment/oil-prices-iran-war-trump.html