Then, without warning, both vessels swung sharply northward in waters off the Iranian coast and turned back — a quiet, unannounced retreat that captured the predicament confronting the entire global energy system. On Friday, it closed above $112 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate settled above $99. A prolonged closure, they wrote, would force prices high enough to destroy demand on a scale never previously witnessed in global commodity markets. The coordinated Anglo-French pressure, coming precisely as the Hormuz crisis reshapes global energy flows, marks a new phase in Western efforts to tighten the economic vice on Moscow’s hydrocarbon revenues. In the more benign case, the conflict ends within days, and the world begins the slow process of reassessing risk premiums.

Source: Daily News Egypt March 28, 2026 17:04 UTC