1. What happened this week
On 23 October Brent closed 3.1 percent higher at 116.72 US dollars, its highest close since 29 April; according to Standard Chartered, 117.45 dollars was reached in trading. The same day an unidentified projectile hit an outbound tanker in the Strait of Hormuz at 08:39 UTC, leaving it unable to manoeuvre; UKMTO published warning 182-26 only three days later. Off the Romanian coast the oil tanker Khoryv, flying the flag of the Comoros, sank after a drone hit around 13 nautical miles off Constanța. Aramco chief executive Amin Nasser said in an interview that the East-West pipeline was running at around 7 million barrels a day and therefore at its capacity (Fortune, 23 October 2026).
On 24 October the Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said attacks had been carried out on the East-West pipeline, on crude pumping stations, on an Aramco facility in Yanbu and on the Rabigh refinery. Saudi Arabia confirmed no hit; the Saudi-led coalition said it had destroyed ballistic missiles heading for Riyadh, Taif and Yanbu over the weekend (Reuters via Al-Monitor, 26 October 2026).
On 25 October the JMIC monitoring centre published its Update 108: 156 confirmed incidents against ships since 1 March, the threat in the Strait of Hormuz still at the highest level, and around 492 ships waiting outside the strait. Two terminals at Riyadh airport resumed operations. A Qatari delegation presented a draft peace agreement in Tehran, according to Reuters.
On 26 October the Revolutionary Guards again declared the strait closed; chief of staff Abdollahi spoke of full control and rejected US statements that the waterway was open. UKMTO reported with warning 183-26 a ship on fire around 63 nautical miles south-east of Al Faw in Iraq, but classified the event as suspicious activity rather than a confirmed attack. Brent closed 0.8 percent lower at 115.81 dollars, weighed down by the mediation signals.
On 27 October a fire broke out in the early hours near the Ras Tanura export terminal, the kingdom's largest oil export terminal. QatarEnergy extended the force majeure on LNG that has been in place since April until the end of December 2026. Traders told Reuters of loading delays of almost three weeks at Novorossiysk. Brent closed 1.7 percent lower at 113.88 dollars.
On 28 October the US naval command NAVCENT issued a notice through the JMIC telling vessels with no need to transit to stay away from the strait; the last comparable notice had come in mid-July. At around 03:00 UTC a tanker was burning some nine nautical miles north of Khasab. Off Bulgaria the container ship Contship Jet was hit by three sea drones, all 18 crew members were rescued, and the defence ministers of Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania agreed a coordination mechanism in Sofia. The EIA reported an unexpected draw on US crude inventories. Brent closed 1.44 dollars higher at 115.32 dollars.
On 29 October the navy of the Revolutionary Guards said three tankers had hit mines within 24 hours in the southern part of the strait; CENTCOM had called such reports false the day before. US President Trump said he had approved a request from Vice President Vance to contact Iran about medical supplies, and denied ordering a resumption of peace talks. Brent eased in trading to around 114 dollars.
2. Hormuz: 492 waiting ships, and a plan over seven days
The Strait of Hormuz is not formally closed, but it is emptier than at any point in this war. In its update of 25 October the JMIC monitoring centre names around 492 ships lying at anchor outside the strait: around 194 off Fujairah and Khor Fakkan, around 178 between Dubai and Ras Al Khaimah, around 55 off Musandam and Sohar, around 32 off Bandar Abbas and Qeshm. For comparison, the same document gives an average of around 138 ships a day in the strait for 2025.
On attacks, the week points in two directions. The UKMTO weekly report of 23 October names five reported attacks in the preceding seven days, after ten the week before, so a decline. At the same time the JMIC has counted 156 confirmed incidents since 1 March, one more than a week earlier, and keeps the threat in the strait at the highest level. Hit this week were an outbound tanker on 23 October, which was left unable to manoeuvre, and a tanker around nine nautical miles north of Khasab on 28 October, which according to the security firm Vanguard Tech was struck by a projectile and had largely sunk.
On 28 October the US naval command NAVCENT issued a notice through the JMIC: vessels that do not need to transit the strait should stay away, transiting vessels should allow more time, and neutral vessels may be questioned and searched. The last comparable notice came in mid-July, at the start of the US blockade. The Revolutionary Guards declared the strait closed again on 26 October and reported mine strikes on five tankers in total on 23, 27 and 29 October, without naming any ship; CENTCOM contradicted this on 28 October and said all internationally recognised main routes had been cleared. Both sides are parties to the conflict, and none of the mine reports is independently confirmed.
How much oil is actually flowing remains disputed. Kpler puts the Hormuz flow for October at an average of 11.7 million barrels a day, against 9.8 million in September and 14.5 million in February. The 24.6 million barrels a day reported last week measure something else, namely the outflows from the whole Persian Gulf including transfers at sea and exports through Red Sea ports. Both figures come from Kpler, and they must not be set against each other.
Politically something is moving, without any result in sight. On 25 October Qatar put forward a draft coordinated with Washington that provides for a seven-day timetable with daily steps by both sides and would bring in several states as guarantors. On the Iranian account, the plan has the United States end hostilities, lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports and release frozen assets in the first five days, Iran open the strait to normal trade on the sixth day, and talks on a comprehensive agreement begin on the seventh. A senior Iranian official called the paper unacceptable to Reuters on 28 October, and foreign minister Araghchi said the same day that Tehran was in close contact with mediators. In the background is a Wall Street Journal report according to which Washington has prepared Gulf states for a short campaign against Iran after the US midterm elections on 3 November.
3. Saudi Arabia: a fire at the largest oil terminal, and claims without confirmation
In the early hours of 27 October a fire broke out near the Ras Tanura export terminal. Saudi Arabia has contained the fire according to an anonymous source speaking to Bloomberg; the extent of the damage was initially unclear, and Aramco and the energy ministry made no immediate comment. The Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the same day that a ballistic missile had hit the Ras Tanura refinery, which runs 550,000 barrels a day, and had started large fires. Saudi authorities have not confirmed this, the broadcaster Al Hadath attributed the fire to falling debris from an interception, and satellite data from the NASA FIRMS system showed heat signatures at the terminal, not demonstrably at processing units of the refinery.
That the facilities keep running does not mean the volumes stay the same. According to a Kpler analysis reported by Asharq Business on 26 October, Ras Tanura loaded 2.95 million barrels a day from 1 to 25 October, against 4.16 million in September; that is a drop of around 29 percent. Total Saudi crude exports came to 5.52 million barrels a day on the same analysis. Vortexa, via Bloomberg on 28 October, arrives at a different picture and gives 6.5 million barrels a day from both coasts for October, Tankertrackers.com even 6.99 million, while Kpler has 5.4 million. Bloomberg explains the range by tankers switching off their satellite transponders. Anyone who presents a single one of these figures as the state of play says more about the chosen data service than about Saudi Arabia.
The Houthis said on 24 and on 26 October that they had attacked the East-West pipeline and its pumping stations. Saudi Arabia has not confirmed this, Reuters expressly notes the absence of confirmation, and an Argus source described earlier Houthi statements about fires in Yanbu and Shaybah as untrue. On the throughput of the line, two figures from the operator and the government stand side by side: Aramco chief executive Amin Nasser gave around 7 million barrels a day on 23 October, and therefore full capacity, the Saudi energy minister had given 5.8 million on 6 October, and OilPrice repeated that figure as late as 26 October. There is no independent measurement.
The Red Sea coast also continues to be protected from outside: at Saudi request Greece is keeping its Patriot battery to protect the energy infrastructure in Yanbu, and prime minister Mitsotakis told Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman so on 25 October.
4. Black Sea: two ships hit and almost three weeks of backlog at Novorossiysk
On 23 October the oil tanker Khoryv, flying the flag of the Comoros, sank around 13 nautical miles off Constanța after a drone hit, just outside Romanian territorial waters. Romania's president Nicușor Dan holds Russia responsible, and Moscow has not claimed it. The casualty figures differ: Reuters names nine rescued, one dead and three missing, the Financial Times ten rescued, one of whom died, and three missing. On 28 October the container ship Contship Jet, under the Liberian flag, was hit by three sea drones around 21 nautical miles south-east of Shabla; all 18 crew members were rescued. Bulgaria's president Rumen Radev said the logic pointed to Russia, but that it could not be proven.
For oil supply, what counts is less the number of hits than their consequence in port. Traders told Reuters on 27 October of loading delays of almost three weeks at Novorossiysk, the port the oil comes from that passes through the Bosphorus. The consortium of the CPC pipeline plans around 6.4 million tonnes for November, that is 1.69 million barrels a day and 2 percent less than in October; Russian seaborne crude exports could be 0.1 to 0.2 million barrels a day below the October level in November, according to Reuters.
That is why our situation map changes one classification in this round: the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles move from running to disrupted. Passage itself remains free, and a Turkish official expressly confirmed that to Reuters on 25 October, citing the Montreux Convention. What is disrupted is not the strait but the traffic beyond it, and that can be documented: two merchant ships hit within one week in the economic zone of NATO states, and a loading backlog of almost three weeks in the most important departure port. For scale, the Financial Times, citing the security firm Ambrey and the IMO, names over 570 ships hit in the Black Sea in 2026, around 387 of them in the third quarter alone, and at least 40 seafarers killed; the paper itself points out that the record keeping is patchy.
Politically, this produced the first joint answer from the coastal states: on 28 October the defence ministers of Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania agreed a coordination mechanism in Sofia, with regular consultations, exchange of information and early warning. No convoys and no escorts were decided. Turkey's defence minister Yaşar Güler called on Russia and Ukraine to stop attacks on merchant ships immediately.
5. What reaches heating oil, diesel and gas
With heating oil, the rise in crude has not come through one for one this week. In Germany HeizOel24 gives 171.75 euros per 100 litres as the national average on 29 October, 0.91 percent less than the day before and almost a euro less than a week earlier; the supplier explains this by gasoil falling more sharply than crude. The official EU oil bulletin lags behind by its nature and gives 1,712.80 euros per 1,000 litres for Germany for the week to 19 October, after 1,698.10 euros a week earlier, a rise of around 0.9 percent. For Austria the bulletin shows 1,808.38 euros, for France 1,930.78 euros and for Spain 1,521.33 euros. Among the national portals, on 29 October Austria stands at 185.51 euros per 100 litres, Switzerland at 173.99 francs per 100 litres, France at 1,860 euros per 1,000 litres for fioul ordinaire, and for Spain calienteybarato.com gives 1.763 euros per litre as of 28 October.
In the United States the most recent official figure is still the one for 19 October, at 6.190 US dollars per gallon excluding taxes. The release announced for 28 October covering the week to 26 October was still not available on 29 October. It is getting tighter all the same: US distillate inventories fell by 1.5 million in the week to 23 October, to 102.8 million barrels, although the market had expected only 0.9 million. The loans of up to 315,000 barrels from the Northeast heating oil reserve are to be completed by 13 November; the sites are South Portland in Maine, Boston in Massachusetts and New Haven in Connecticut.
A second strand towards the US East Coast has been under way since this week and is legally contested. The tanker Agioi Fanendes, under the Maltese flag, loaded just under 40,000 tonnes of low-sulphur diesel at the Russian Baltic port of Primorsk on 22 October, bound according to ship data for the Port of New York and New Jersey with arrival expected on 7 November. It is the first delivery under the agreement between Washington and Moscow announced on 9 October. Senator Richard Blumenthal demanded on 27 October that the ship turn around and set the owner a deadline of 31 October to reply; the US Treasury considers the delivery permitted under a general licence valid until 7 April 2027. Which terminal takes the cargo and who buys it has not been named.
In gas this was the most expensive week in four years. The European TTF benchmark price stood at 97.64 euros per megawatt hour on 27 October and briefly passed 100 euros on 28 October, the first time since December 2022; before the war began in February it was around 30 euros. One trigger was QatarEnergy's extension of the force majeure on LNG from Ras Laffan until the end of December 2026, which affects among others the Italian supplier Edison, whose long-term contract accounts for around 10 percent of Italy's annual consumption. Gas storage stood at 61.73 percent in Germany and 74.98 percent in the EU on 27 October, according to GIE AGSI+. The German filling target of 80 percent by 1 November and the EU target of 90 percent will both be missed; the Bundesnetzagentur had said at the start of October that supply was stable and that meeting the targets was not strictly necessary for security of supply.