Oil Prices No Longer Follow Headlines

A month ago, a series of news reports said oil flows out of Hormuz had recovered to pre-war levels, pushing oil prices lower. However, the rout did not last. Benchmarks are set for their fourth monthly gain in a row, and no amount of repeating that Gulf states are exporting even more oil than before the war can change that.

Because barrels are not the whole story. "What is the price of oil Eight months into the war withIran, what should be a straightforward question has become surprisingly hard to answer," JP Morgan's head of global commodities, Natasha Kaneva, said as quoted by the Wall Street Journal this week. The publication noted that Kaneva's own oil price model suggests a fair value of $94 for a barrel of Brent crude.