--- title: "Oil Climbs Back Above $70 as U.S. Strikes Iran and Hormuz Shipping Strains Deepen" description: "U.S. crude climbed back above $70 a barrel after Washington launched a retaliatory strike on Iran, the latest jolt to an oil market still rattled by attacks on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important oil chokepoint." category: "Markets" category_url: https://boursel.com/category/markets author: "Olivia Chen" published: 2026-06-27T01:49:30.000Z updated: 2026-06-27T01:49:30.000Z canonical: https://boursel.com/article/oil-climbs-back-above-70-as-us-strikes-iran-and-hormuz-shipping-strains-deepen tags: ["oil", "iran", "strait-of-hormuz", "crude", "shipping", "war-risk-insurance"] --- # Oil Climbs Back Above $70 as U.S. Strikes Iran and Hormuz Shipping Strains Deepen U.S. crude climbed back above $70 a barrel after Washington launched a retaliatory strike on Iran, the latest jolt to an oil market still rattled by attacks on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important oil chokepoint. U.S. crude oil climbed back above $70 a barrel after American aircraft struck Iran on Thursday, [according to market reports](https://seekingalpha.com/news/4607863-us-crude-oil-climbs-back-above-70-after-strike-on-iran), as traders weighed whether a fragile understanding between Washington and Tehran could survive a fresh exchange of fire. The strike came in response to a drone attack a day earlier on a container ship off the coast of Oman, near the approaches to the Strait of Hormuz. ## What happened U.S. forces struck Iranian targets on Thursday after President Trump said Iran had fired on the cargo vessel the day before. "I don't like the fact that they took a shot yesterday, actually four of them," Trump said, [according to Fortune](https://fortune.com/2026/06/26/us-aircraft-attack-iran-drone-strike-cargo-ship-ceasefire-strait-of-hormuz/). The exchange tested an interim understanding the two sides reached roughly a week earlier, under which they gave themselves 60 days to negotiate the details of a broader de-escalation. For oil traders, the relevant question is not the politics but the plumbing: whether crude can keep flowing through the Strait of Hormuz. ## Why the Strait of Hormuz matters The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow waterway between Oman and Iran that connects the Persian Gulf to the open ocean. It is the single most important passage in the global oil trade: a large share of the crude exported by Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Iran must pass through it, and there is no full-capacity alternative route by land. When traffic through the strait slows, the market prices in the risk that some of that supply will not reach buyers — and prices rise. That mechanism explains the day's move. Even though the strait stayed open, the strike revived fears of disruption, lifting crude after a weaker stretch. ## Traffic is thinning again Shipping data show the strain. Vessel transits through the strait fell from 78 on Wednesday, before the drone strike, to 43 afterward, [Fortune reported](https://fortune.com/2026/06/26/us-aircraft-attack-iran-drone-strike-cargo-ship-ceasefire-strait-of-hormuz/) — still well below the pre-conflict average of 130 or more ships a day. About 115 vessels managed to move out of the area in recent days, leaving roughly 500 still inside. The strait, in the report's words, "remains operationally open," but only barely busy. A thin, nervous flow of ships is not the same as a functioning trade route. Each captain weighing a transit has to factor in not just the physical risk but the cost of insuring against it. ## The insurance squeeze That cost has become its own market story. War-risk insurance — a specialist marine policy that covers a vessel against damage or loss in a conflict zone — spiked after the attack on the container ship, [MarketWatch reported](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/irans-ship-attack-tests-the-shipping-insurance-market-just-as-war-risk-premiums-had-plunged-8c4ef14d), just as premiums had been falling on hopes the worst was over. When underwriters raise the price of covering a Hormuz passage — or decline to cover it at all — the economics of a voyage can flip from profitable to unworkable, thinning traffic further regardless of the official status of the strait. The result is a feedback loop the market knows well: a security incident raises insurance costs, higher costs deter shipowners, fewer ships mean tighter effective supply, and tighter supply lifts the oil price. Thursday's strike nudged every link of that chain. ## What to watch The near-term direction of oil now hangs on whether the 60-day negotiating window holds or frays. Analysts have cautioned that if traffic through Hormuz stays sluggish, prices could climb further; a durable calm, by contrast, would let the war-risk premiums that briefly plunged resume their fall and let crude drift back down. For now, the market is pricing the middle case — open, but fragile. ## Sources - [U.S. aircraft attack Iran in response to drone strike on cargo ship](https://fortune.com/2026/06/26/us-aircraft-attack-iran-drone-strike-cargo-ship-ceasefire-strait-of-hormuz/) - [U.S. crude oil climbs back above $70 after strike on Iran](https://seekingalpha.com/news/4607863-us-crude-oil-climbs-back-above-70-after-strike-on-iran) - [Iran's ship attack tests the shipping-insurance market](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/irans-ship-attack-tests-the-shipping-insurance-market-just-as-war-risk-premiums-had-plunged-8c4ef14d) - [Shipping rebounds in Strait of Hormuz one week after U.S.-Iran deal](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/26/strait-of-hormuz-shipping-oil-us-iran.html)