Oil Prices No Longer Follow Headlines

OilPrice.com · Irina Slav · 2026-11-02 00:00 UTC

Fears of renewed U.S.-Iran hostilities after the November 3 midterms threaten further price spikes, with little prospect of oil returning below $100 without a credible peace deal.

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 with Iran, 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.

Yet Brent crude is trading at over $116 per barrel.

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