Brent tops $111 as Hormuz ship attacks and Houthi strikes lift oil to five-month high

In brief

How it came to this

Late August 2026Brent falls to $85 a barrel
20 OctBrent climbs to as much as $112 a barrel
3 NovUS midterm elections

Prices climb to a five-month high

Brent crude rose as high as $112 a barrel on Tuesday, 20 October, its highest level in five months. Le Soir put the benchmark at $111.27, up 2%, its highest since May. The contract had already closed near $109 on Monday. Later in the session the gains were erased and prices fell more than 2%, to $106, still roughly 25% above late August, when Brent had dropped to $85. Gas prices reached their own peak, with the TTF contract on the Amsterdam exchange trading above 90 euros per megawatt-hour, its highest since the end of 2022.

Brent crude price points, late August to 20 October 2026$/bbl

Data from the article text

Ship attacks and strikes on Saudi targets

Kpler, a shipping data provider, reported at least 18 ships attacked in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz within two weeks. Its figures also show weekly oil exports out of the strait fell to 8.5 million barrels a day last week, from more than 20 million the week before. Iran's first vice president, Mohammad Reza Aref, told Russian prime minister Mikhail Mishustin on Monday in Tajikistan that Iran had no choice but to exercise sovereignty over the waterway to guarantee its security.

Aref also addressed Washington directly, in words reported from the same meeting:

“the US is now the cause of the current situation and must pay the price.”

Mohammad Reza Aref, iran's first vice president

The Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said they had carried out several attacks on Saudi energy facilities, airports and military targets, including an Aramco plant in Yanbu, the Shaybah oil field, King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh and Abha airport. Saudi authorities had not confirmed these claims, and the reports could not be independently verified. Separately, a Houthi attack on a training camp for state security forces in Yemen's Shabwa province killed 58 people and injured more than 200.

Commodities economist Hamad Hussain of Capital Economics put the outlook plainly:

“The risks to oil prices clearly lie to the upside.”

Hamad Hussain

He warned that a further escalation in attacks on ships could reduce oil supply and keep prices rising.

Supply recovery, freight and sanctioned tankers

US energy secretary Chris Wright told Fox News that Gulf crude flows had recovered to about 80% of prewar levels, although refined product shipments remained constrained. Iraq's oil minister said exports had exceeded 3.4 million barrels a day so far this month, with shipments now close to prewar levels after deep discounts to regional benchmarks. Freight costs are adding to the pressure. Yannik Mosbach of Bankhaus Metzler cited spot prices for tanker voyages from the Persian Gulf to China of just under one million dollars a day. For a large tanker on a roughly 20-day trip, he said, costs could quickly reach about 10% of the cargo's value, while Handelsblatt calculations put the share below 1% before the Iran war.

Wright also said the Trump administration is authorising the sale of sanctioned oil tankers so they can legitimately ship crude, an effort to add capacity as the war strains supply. He estimated there are about 1,600 vessels in the global dark fleet.

ING analysts wrote on Tuesday that the market is pricing in a considerable risk premium, and they added a caveat:

“If supply flows continue unimpeded despite the geopolitical environment, the risk premium should gradually shrink.”

ING

No signs of such a flow recovery were visible at the time. Several countries have released part of their oil reserves to cushion the supply shock, and global reserves are falling.

Inflation worries and the 3 November midterms

High energy prices feed concern that inflation will stay elevated, which could force central banks to raise interest rates more than they had expected. Higher rates would add to the costs of technology companies that are borrowing heavily to keep up in the AI race. Markets still hope that the United States and Iran could move closer before the midterm elections on 3 November, but earlier disappointments give that hope little weight. Deutsche Bank analysts said an agreement between Washington and Iran before the vote looked increasingly difficult. Any credible signal in that direction would push oil prices clearly lower.