Oil prices edged lower on Friday, but the inability of Brent to retreat decisively from $105 is exposing a problem that additional barrels alone may not solve: moving crude safely and cheaply.
Brent fell about 0.7% to $105.21 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate slipped 0.8% to $97.20. Both remained on course for weekly gains, with WTI up almost 6%.
Washington is considering easing restrictions on some sanctioned tankers and the International Energy Agency is accelerating emergency fuel releases.
Yet traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains impaired, leaving freight, insurance and geopolitical costs embedded in crude prices.
Tanker relief may be smaller than Washington hopes
The Trump administration is considering allowing some sanctioned “shadow fleet” vessels back into legitimate trade to increase shipping capacity and lower freight rates.
The idea targets logistics rather than production. A shortage of usable vessels has pushed tanker costs sharply higher, making some barrels expensive to deliver even when crude itself is available.
The Financial Times reported that Washington sees tanker scarcity as an increasingly important contributor to elevated fuel prices.
But the potential impact looks limited, as Kpler analysts estimate that only around 24 of 160 sanctioned supertankers could realistically return to mainstream trading because many are too old, lack insurance or certification, or remain restricted by other governments.
Their assessment suggests easing US sanctions alone would barely dent the tanker shortage.
Hormuz remains the real constraint on crude
Physical flows through the Gulf are still far from normal.
Kpler data show Hormuz clearances averaged about 11.62 million barrels a day in the week through October 13, roughly 68% of the 17.15 million-barrel baseline. Analysts at the firm expect recovery to remain uneven while attacks continue.
That matters more than headline production capacity. Two Emirati vessels sank near the strait this week, while attacks on Saudi infrastructure and renewed Iranian pressure on commercial shipping have kept war-risk insurance elevated.
Goldman Sachs recently estimated Brent’s geopolitical risk premium at about $22 a barrel, the second-highest monthly level on record. That helps explain why policy announcements have struggled to drive crude sustainably lower.
WTI’s surge shows physical tightness is not just geopolitical
The US market is sending its own bullish signal.
WTI jumped about 3% on Thursday after Energy Information Administration data showed crude inventories falling 8.6 million barrels in the latest week, alongside a 2.5 million-barrel diesel draw. Hurricane-related production outages contributed to the decline.
That helps explain why WTI is up almost 5.8% this week while Brent has gained less than 1%.
The IEA is trying to cool the products market by accelerating roughly 100 million barrels of remaining emergency releases, including more than 20 million barrels of diesel. About 330 million barrels have already been released under the March programme.
Haitong Futures analysts nevertheless argued that emergency supply measures can only do so much while Middle East tensions remain unresolved.
Their view is that genuine geopolitical de-escalation, rather than incremental stock releases, would be needed to remove the larger premium from crude.
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