Crude fell for a second straight session on Tuesday, Nov. 3, after Monday’s drop of more than 7%. Brent settled at $103.60 a barrel, down $1.17. West Texas Intermediate settled at $96.09, down 37 cents. Reported attacks did not stop while those prices fell.
The decline followed talk of diplomacy. Qatar said a delegation had held talks in Tehran. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said Tehran would not accept talks based on coercion, and CNBC said the status of any deal was unclear.
The risk is still a set of incident reports, not a barrel count. CNBC, citing U.S. officials, reported a Monday strike on Qeshm Island and other limited strikes. The U.K. Maritime Trade Operations centre has recorded at least four commercial-ship attacks since the start of November in the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman. BBC News, citing three U.S. officials via CBS, also reported limited defensive strikes near Hormuz.
Futures can fall on diplomacy headlines while insurance, rerouting and freight remain channels to refiners and, later, fuel buyers. No new retail gasoline or diesel survey was released with this settlement.
Did Tuesday’s lower crude price cut U.S. gasoline? No pump-price change was established. The new facts are lower futures settlements while reported strikes and ship attacks continued.