--- title: "Brent tops $90 as Washington says its Iran mission now targets oil flow" description: "Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the US has pivoted to keeping oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz, with or without Iran's cooperation. Brent rose 3.09% to $90.76 on Monday. War-risk insurance on Gulf tankers now runs 3% to 10% of hull value, against roughly 0.25% before the conflict." category: "Markets" category_url: https://boursel.com/category/markets author: "Priya Venkatesan" published: 2026-07-20T07:16:00.000Z updated: 2026-07-20T07:16:00.000Z canonical: https://boursel.com/article/brent-tops-90-dollars-as-washington-says-its-iran-mission-now-targets-oil-flow tags: ["oil", "iran", "commodities", "shipping"] --- # Brent tops $90 as Washington says its Iran mission now targets oil flow Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the US has pivoted to keeping oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz, with or without Iran's cooperation. Brent rose 3.09% to $90.76 on Monday. War-risk insurance on Gulf tankers now runs 3% to 10% of hull value, against roughly 0.25% before the conflict. The stated objective of the US campaign against Iran has shifted from securing a negotiated settlement to physically keeping the oil moving. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, speaking on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, said the United States has ["pivoted"](https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5977036-energy-secretary-iran-war-update/) to ensuring "oil and gas and other products can flow through the Strait of Hormuz, with or without Iranian cooperation." Washington had sought an agreement under which Iran would let commercial shipping pass unmolested, Wright said, but "they've proven unwilling to do that." The mission, he added, "will go on until the mission is done." ## What the market did Brent crude rose [3.09% to $90.76 a barrel](https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/brent-crude-oil) on Monday, from a previous close of about $88. That follows a week in which crude gained more than 14%, with Brent settling at $88.10 and West Texas Intermediate at $82.49 on Friday, July 17. The more revealing number is not the crude price but the cost of insuring a ship to sail there. War-risk premiums for Gulf tankers now run between [3% and 10% of hull value](https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/2026/07/17/war-risk-shipping-premium-surges-again-as-tensions-escalate-at-strait-of-hormuz/), according to Marcus Baker, global head of marine, cargo and logistics at the broker Marsh, who said "the range reflecting the concerns." Before the conflict the rate was around 0.25%. For a $100 million tanker, that is the difference between roughly $250,000 and $3m to $10m per voyage-period of cover. Insurance pricing is the cleanest available read on how professionals assess the actual probability of a vessel being hit, and it has moved by a factor of 12 to 40. That cost does not vanish; it is passed into freight rates and ultimately into the delivered price of the cargo. The human cost of the disruption is visible in the same data. Around 6,000 seafarers were stranded in the region as of the International Maritime Organization's July 8 update, with evacuation efforts under way. ## Why this strait and no other The Strait of Hormuz has no substitute at scale. According to the [US Energy Information Administration](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61002), oil flow through it averaged 21 million barrels a day in 2022, equivalent to about 21% of global petroleum liquids consumption. Flows in 2022 and the first half of 2023 made up more than a quarter of all seaborne traded oil, and about a fifth of global liquefied natural gas trade passed through it in 2022. Bypass pipelines exist, principally Saudi and Emirati routes to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Oman, but their combined capacity covers only a fraction of normal Hormuz volumes. That is the structural fact underneath every price move in this conflict. ## The administration's own numbers Wright gave a specific account of current flows. The seven-day trailing average, he said, is "just under seven million barrels a day flowing through the waterway and just under seven million barrels a day additional flow through the bypass pipelines," totaling "a little under 14 million barrels a day from the Arabian Gulf region." He characterized that as "two-thirds of pre-conflict traffic, dramatically up from where we were back in March." He also described two distinct routes through the strait: traffic near the Iranian islands, which he called "flow complicit with Iran," and a southern route "protected by American infrastructure." These figures should be read for what they are: the account of an administration with an interest in demonstrating that its strategy is working. They are plausible and specific, but independent verification of real-time transit volumes is limited, and Wright's framing measures barrels rather than vessels. Ship-tracking reports through mid-July described traffic well below normal levels. Two things can be true at once, and appear to be. Flows have recovered substantially from the worst of the disruption in the spring, and they remain materially below where they were before the war. ## This is a supply disruption, not only a risk premium The distinction matters for interpreting the oil price. Frequently in Middle East crises, crude rises on the possibility of disruption while physical barrels keep moving; the premium unwinds when the feared event does not occur. That is not what is happening here. By the administration's own account, flows are running at about two-thirds of pre-conflict levels, insurers are pricing a real probability of vessel loss, and thousands of crew are stranded. Barrels that would normally have moved have not moved. ## How it got here The current phase follows the collapse of a ceasefire. A memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran was signed on June 17. It broke down in early July after attacks on commercial vessels in the strait, and US strikes resumed from July 13. In the same period the administration floated, then abandoned, a proposal to charge shipping a fee for transiting the strait, with President Trump saying at one point that the waterway was open to all traffic except Iran. The US has also reinstated a naval blockade on Iranian oil exports. For investors the practical question is which of two states the market settles into: a prolonged period in which roughly a third of Gulf export capacity stays offline and the risk premium becomes structural, or a de-escalation that restores flows and unwinds it. Analysts quoted in recent coverage have pointed to scope for a sharper move higher if physical shortages worsen. Nothing in Wright's remarks suggested the campaign is close to ending.