Brent crude oil surges to $99 per barrel, flirting with triple digits

Brent crude hit $99.38 per barrel by 8 a.m. Eastern on September 3, a gain of $3.27 from the previous morning and roughly $31.50 higher than where it traded a year ago. The benchmark is now flirting with triple digits for the first time since a brief spike earlier in 2026, when prices touched around $120 before partially cooling off. The proximate cause is familiar by now: the Strait of Hormuz, the 21-mile-wide channel through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply passes, is once again looking like a bottleneck with real teeth. What’s driving the spike Renewed US airstrikes on Iranian missile and radar infrastructure have reignited hostilities that a June ceasefire was supposed to quiet. Shipping data tells the story more clearly than any diplomatic statement. Tanker transits through Hormuz dropped to as few as six vessels on a recent day, compared to a 10-day rolling average of around 13. Cut the flow through the world’s most critical oil chokepoint roughly in half and prices respond accordingly. The disruption isn’t confined to Iranian exports. Iraq, Kuwait, and the UAE have begun trimming their own output, not because OPEC told them to, but because storage facilities a...