Brent slips to $101.60 as G7 stock releases meet a still-shut Hormuz

Brent crude fell 70 cents, or 0.69 percent, to 101.60 dollars a barrel in early trade on Monday, 5 October 2026. West Texas Intermediate fell 90 cents, or 1.07 percent, to 90.15 dollars. The move is small against the level. Both contracts are still at prices that would have been called a spike two years ago. The reason for the dip is extra barrels, not a calmer Gulf.

The Economic Times tied the slip to two supply facts. Middle Eastern crude exports have risen. Group of Seven governments are preparing releases from strategic stocks. Those releases sit on top of the export rise. Together they add oil to the market while the Strait of Hormuz remains closed under conditions set by Tehran. Parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf has said the strait stays shut until Washington meets seven terms from the June Islamabad memorandum. A shut strait and a falling price can coexist when the barrels in the price are coming from storage and from producers who do not need that strait.

Later in the Indian session, one close report had Brent up 0.19 percent at 102.40 dollars. The morning print and the afternoon print differ by less than a dollar. Neither breaks the triple-digit floor. For India, which imports most of the crude it refines, the useful figure is the one refiners pay this week, not the intraday tick. A barrel near 102 dollars keeps aviation fuel, already at about 137 rupees a litre in Delhi, under pressure. IndiGo's new fuel charge from Tuesday is the retail echo of this wholesale price.

The war premium has not gone. Houthi forces said they launched ballistic missiles and drones at Saudi Aramco sites in Riyadh and at Khurais, calling the attacks a reply to about 50 coalition strikes in Yemen over the previous 12 hours. Saudi Arabia has not confirmed the hits. A Saudi-led coalition, the same day, said 100 jets were flying Operation Dawn of Yemen and had air protection over Bab al-Mandab. A trader who marks down the Iran risk because of stock releases is still holding Yemen risk. Bab al-Mandab is the other gate. Oil that avoids Hormuz by going around Africa, or that loads in the Red Sea, still has to pass that strait or take the long route.

Iran's own export number is the stark one on the other side of the ledger. The National reported that a US naval blockade has driven Iranian crude exports to zero, a description the central bank chief had already used. Oil minister Mohsen Paknejad resigned over the weekend. Hamid Bovard, head of the National Iranian Oil Company, is acting minister. A producer with no exports does not set the Brent print. Storage releases and remaining Gulf exports do. That is why the price can ease on the day Iran's oil ministry changes hands.

The G7 release is the policy tool. Strategic stocks are finite. They lower a prompt price if the market believes the barrels will actually be sold into it. They do not replace a strait. If the release is slow, or smaller than the prompt loss from Hormuz, Monday's 70-cent dip is a pause. If the release is large and Middle East exports keep rising, 101.60 dollars becomes a step down from the 102.25 dollars Brent settled at on 2 October, not a new range.

The spread between Brent and WTI, roughly 11 dollars on Monday morning, is the other number worth keeping. It prices the cost and the risk of moving oil to the markets Brent serves. A wide spread says Atlantic and Asian buyers are still paying up relative to US inland crude. Stock releases aimed at that spread will show up in Brent first.

What settles the week is the size of the G7 sale, not the Monday tick. Until that volume is published, 101.60 dollars is a price with a shut strait still in the footnote.