Oil Sharply Cheaper Amid Iran Talks

• 29.05.2026, 19:32

Market participants expect the resumption of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

Brent crude oil traded at $92 per barrel on the last working day of May, having fallen in price by 19% over the month. Market participants have been hoping for an amicable agreement between the U.S. and Iran all along, and in recent days, according to Axios, a 60-day truce has been agreed upon. It provides for the resumption of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz without any additional conditions.

President Donald Trump has not yet approved the terms of the agreement, a person with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg. Earlier, Trump said he would take a few days to reflect. "The market is clearly hoping that we are now on the way to some kind of solution," said Bjarne Schildrop, chief commodities analyst at SEB Bank. - The likely way out of this war has been seen for quite some time as a deal, which is not really a deal, but rather an agreement to continue negotiations and then resolve the disputed issues."

Although the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz has reduced energy supplies, a range of measures - from increased oil exports from the U.S. and other producers to slowing imports by China and other countries, reducing consumption and selling oil from strategic reserves - have mitigated the effects. While the global market losses were initially estimated at about 20% (about 20 million barrels per day), the majority of market participants surveyed by Bloomberg Intelligence expect a shortfall of 3-7 million barrels per day over the next year.

Two-thirds of them expect the average Brent price during this period to be $81-100 per barrel; 56% believe it will fluctuate within this range by the end of this year.