Brent closed near $106 before the rejection, with traffic through Hormuz at a post-conflict high

Lloyd’s List Intelligence, in its Strait of Hormuz Brief of 9 September, counted at least 346 non-Iranian-linked vessels transiting the strait during August — 191 westbound, 155 eastbound — with more than 190 entering the Gulf, which it described as a post-conflict record and the first month since March in which inbound traffic exceeded outbound. Lloyd’s own caveat belongs alongside the number: transit activity “remains volatile and weekly volumes are likely to fluctuate during periods of heightened violence.” The same brief reports Iran saying it is close to agreeing a new shipping corridor with Oman running through Iranian and Omani waters under Iranian management — an Iranian claim, and a sovereignty proposition rather than a logistics one, which sits directly alongside Tehran’s stated intention to levy fees on transiting vessels.

The commercial risk vendor Windward reported that two projectiles struck the Antigua and Barbuda-flagged bulk carrier CAPE DAO (IMO 9219020) at approximately 06:30 UTC on 23 September, roughly 2.5 nautical miles off Oman’s Musandam Governorate, hitting the port-side engine room and C-deck accommodation and sparking a fire. The vessel was sailing from Mina Saqr in the UAE to India and had been dark — AIS off — since 5 September. The outcome for the crew is not established in the material The Files has seen. US Maritime Administration advisory 2026-006, issued 26 March, makes the relevant point: vessels have been attacked with AIS both on and off, and switching it off does not confer protection. Windward also logged roughly 15.1 million barrels of crude moving outbound on 23 September against about 1.1 million the previous day — but about 10.1 million of that was ship-to-ship transfer.

Prices went the other way. The National reported Brent fell 0.88% to $105.70 on Friday 25 September, easing from an intraday high of $108 the previous session, with the Brent–WTI spread widening to $12.68, the largest since May, attributed partly to a potential US ban on diesel exports. TradingEconomics recorded Brent snapping a two-day rally toward $105 on reports Washington and Tehran were weighing a phased reopening, before paring losses to around $106 and finishing the week more than 2% higher. Earlier in the month, after the US military destroyed five Iranian crude tankers on 8 September, Brent settled at $101.21 on 9 September, its highest close since 22 May, and Goldman Sachs said intensifying shipping attacks raised the probability of Brent exceeding $120.

Assessment: Monday’s open is the cleanest available test of whether Saturday’s rejection was news or choreography. A flat or modestly softer print means the market had already priced refusal — which reads harder on the president’s intentions than either anonymous leak now circulating. A move above $108 means it had not. Treat Windward’s fourteenfold one-day surge as a measurement artefact until the ship-to-ship share is explained; two-thirds of that volume never touched a terminal. And note what the August transit count does not tell you: hulls moving is not risk falling. The CAPE DAO had been invisible for eighteen days and was hit anyway.