Brent crude fell for a third straight session on Thursday, dipping below $71 a barrel to its lowest since late February, as the Strait of Hormuz reopened to significant tanker traffic following indirect US-Iran talks in Doha. The Qatari foreign ministry reported “positive progress” on the memorandum of understanding that halted the war in mid-June, and ship-tracking data showed four supertankers carrying some 8 million barrels of Saudi crude exiting the strait in a single day—the largest such movement since the ceasefire. The immediate effect was a return to price levels not seen since before the conflict erupted on 28 February, with Brent settling around $71.80 and West Texas Intermediate near $68.70.

The recovery in flows, however, remains incomplete and politically fragile. Overall transit through the waterway has rebounded to more than 10 million barrels per day, according to a US official cited by Bloomberg, but that is still well below the pre-war average of 18–19 million bpd. Gulf producers are ramping up: Kuwait’s output surged to 1.65 million bpd in June from 580,000 bpd in May, while the UAE exported over 3.9 million bpd, its highest rate since 2017. Yet on Thursday, Iran’s joint military command threatened an “immediate and forceful response” against any vessel deviating from approved routes, a reminder that the security framework governing the strait rests on a temporary memorandum, not a permanent settlement. The next round of talks will not convene until after the funeral of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on 9 July.

Analysts in major financial centres are split on the trajectory. Investment banks have slashed forecasts: UBS cut its third-quarter Brent estimate by $25 to $80 a barrel, and Citi now sees prices falling to $65 in 2027, citing a steady restoration of supply led by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iran and Russia. By contrast, some Gulf-based market specialists argue that current prices are unsustainably low. Kuwaiti expert Mohammed al-Shatti told An-Nahar that the market is “much lower than it should be,” pointing to the risk of a geopolitical escalation that could stall or reverse the diplomatic process. This divergence is compounded by the upcoming OPEC+ meeting on Sunday, where producers are expected to agree on a further output increase from August, adding a supply-side weight to prices even as demand recovers slowly.

The immediate milestones are the OPEC+ decision this weekend and the resumption of US-Iran negotiations after the Khamenei funeral. While the Doha channel has delivered a fragile calm, the Iranian military’s latest warning and the absence of a nuclear accord mean the risk of renewed disruption remains priced into the market’s cautious optimism.