Crude oil stays high: $90.22 in New York on September 1, Brent at $95.16 on the 4th

On September 1 oil closed up 5.20% in New York, at $90.22 a barrel, ANSA reports based on the U.S. market’s closing data. Three sessions later, on September 4, Brent showed a slight decline of 0.38%, to $95.16 a barrel, according to Il Sole 24 Ore’s market page fed by ICE data.

A clarification before anything else: these are two different quotations, referring to different markets and different days. The gap between the two figures does not measure a five-dollar rise over three days, and the available material does not contain the series that would allow such a calculation. What the two readings say together, and consistently, is that crude is trading above the $90 threshold and that daily swings are wide.

What’s inside the price

The cause indicated by the sources is the tension between the United States and Iran around the Strait of Hormuz, which quickly fed through to markets with price rises after the exchange of fire resumed. U.S. Central Command said it struck two missile launch ramps on the Iranian island of Larak, claiming they were preparing to lay naval mines in the Strait, and described the operation as limited and precise against forces that posed an imminent threat to shipping; the account is published by the Syrian agency SANA based on a Reuters pickup.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards reported deaths and injuries among their personnel, and the governor of Qeshm island spoke of two casualties. Iran responded by launching ballistic missiles toward U.S. positions in Jordan; the UAE Ministry of Defense announced the interception of a drone coming from Iran. The White House said all options remain on President Trump’s table, as reported by Sinai News based on statements from both sides.

Why the risk premium is not the damage

A high price does not, in itself, equate to a disruption of supplies. The risk premium is the cost the market attaches to the probability that something happens: in Hormuz’s case, the possibility that transit is hindered. Open-source analysis by the European Centre for Counter-Terrorism and Intelligence Studies records U.S. mine-clearing operations and ship escorts: traffic, in other words, continues under protection.

The distinction matters because it separates two figures often conflated in the telling: the barrels actually transiting, which we do not know for these days, and the price paid to ensure they transit, which instead is observed every day on the price sheets.

What we don’t know

We do not have figures on the volume of crude passing through the Strait during the sessions in question, nor data on freight insurance costs, which normally are the first channel through which military tension becomes a price at the pump. We do not know the strategic reserves being drawn on, nor producing countries’ position on production quotas. No official projection on prices for the coming weeks appears in the available material.

What can be verified in the near term is instead the sequence of daily closes, session by session, on the same two markets cited here: the last confirmable value at the time of publication is Brent at $95.16 on September 4, down 0.38%.