Brent crude (BZ=F) opened at $96.40 a barrel in Monday trade — an eight-session high — and traded as high as $97.10 in early Asian dealings before settling near $96.20 by 0900 GMT. WTI front-month (CL=F) opened at $93.05 a barrel, with the Brent-WTI spread widening to $3.35 from $2.85 Friday on regional-supply concerns. The Israel Defense Forces confirmed two waves of overnight strikes on Iran's Bandar Abbas naval base, the third-largest Iranian naval installation, in what an IDF Spokesperson statement described as "preemptive degradation of asymmetric maritime capabilities."
Iranian Mehr News Agency confirmed at least three vessels — including a Kilo-class submarine moored for refit and two Houdong-class missile boats — were struck in the harbor. Casualty figures have not been released. The Pentagon confirmed that no U.S. assets were involved in the strikes but that the deployment of an additional Patriot PAC-3 battery to Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar has been ordered. Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a televised address that "all options remain open" but stopped short of explicit Strait of Hormuz closure threats.
Strait of Hormuz Risk Premium
The Bandar Abbas location — 25 nautical miles from the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint that handles 21% of global seaborne crude — re-priced the latent closure risk into the front-end of the curve. Brent's 1m-2m calendar spread moved into a $0.85 backwardation from $0.30 Friday, the steepest backwardation in three months. The 25-delta call-put risk reversal in WTI moved 3.4 vol points more positive on the day, the largest single-session right-skew shift since the Houthi Red Sea attacks of late 2023. Tanker rates surged: Baltic Dirty Tanker Index added 6.2%.
Equity Read-Through
Energy-complex equities ran higher in pre-market dealings: ExxonMobil (XOM) +1.8%, Chevron (CVX) +1.4%, ConocoPhillips (COP