Brent crude jumped 8% on Thursday. WTI did the same. Both benchmarks blew past $108 a barrel in a rally that started in Asian trading and accelerated through the London session.
No single headline caused the move. Five separate pressure points hit the oil market at once, and each one reinforced the others.
1. Trump's April 6 deadline is four days away
President Donald Trump has given Iran until Monday to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face military strikes on Kharg Island, the terminal that handles 90% of Iran's crude exports. He has already extended the deadline twice, first from March 21 to late March and then to April 6, each time citing "progress" that Iran denies is happening.
Traders are pricing in a binary outcome. Either Iran blinks and the risk premium drains out, or Kharg gets hit and 1.5 million barrels per day of supply vanishes from a market that is already short. Goldman Sachs estimates $14 to $18 per barrel of the current Brent price is geopolitical risk premium alone.
With four days left, the market is betting on the worse scenario.
2. The UK summit showed nobody can force the strait open
Britain convened 35 nations on Thursday to discuss reopening the Strait of Hormuz. France, Germany, Japan, Australia, South Korea, the UAE, and two dozen others dialed in. The United States did not.
Trump told allies on Truth Social to "go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT." Prime Minister Keir Starmer responded that Britain "will not be drawn into the conflict" and acknowledged the task "will not be easy."
A follow-up military planning session is scheduled, but it focuses on reopening the strait after the fighting stops, not during it. For a market watching traffic through Hormuz collapse by 95%, the summit confirmed what traders already suspected: no one is coming to force the corridor open anytime soon.
3. Qatar's LNG crisis just got worse
QatarEnergy extended its force majeure declaration to mid-June on Monday, telling Italy's Edison it cannot deliver 10 LNG cargoes through the spring. Iranian drone strikes forced Ras Laffan Industrial City to shut down on March 2, and follow-up missile attacks on March 18 and 19 knocked out two of Qatar's 14 LNG trains and one gas-to-liquids facility.
QatarEnergy CEO Saad al-Kaabi said repairs will take three to five years. That is 12.8 million tonnes of annual LNG production offline and roughly $20 billion in lost yearly revenue.
Before the war, analysts predicted a global LNG glut in 2026. That forecast is dead. European and Asian gas buyers are now scrambling for alternative supply, and the competition for every available cargo is pushing energy prices higher across the board.
4. OPEC+ meets Sunday, one day before the deadline
The April 5 OPEC+ meeting lands in the most volatile oil market since 2008. The alliance agreed in March to raise output by 206,000 barrels per day starting in April. Saudi Arabia added 62,000, Russia 62,000, and six other members split the rest.
But the increase is partly theoretical. Iraq and Kuwait physically cannot export through the Strait of Hormuz, so their quotas are academic. Iran's own barrels are offline because of the war. Actual supply reaching the market depends more on the strait than on any production target.
Three scenarios are in play: hold output flat, stick with the planned modest increase, or surprise with a larger bump above 400,000 barrels per day to signal that OPEC+ prioritizes stability. Any decision lands 24 hours before Trump's ultimatum, which means the market will read it through a geopolitical lens no matter what OPEC+ announces.
5. Every diplomatic channel has stalled
The US sent Iran a 15-point peace plan through Pakistan in late March. Iran's foreign ministry spokesman called the demands "excessive, unrealistic and unreasonable." Washington is not participating in the UK-led multilateral track. Trump's own negotiations have produced two deadline extensions but no agreement.
The result is a market with no visible path to de-escalation before Monday. Each failed attempt at diplomacy adds to the risk premium, and Thursday's session priced in the cumulative weight of all of them.
Where prices stand
Brent crude traded at $109.19 per barrel on Thursday, up 8.03%. WTI hit $108.43, up 8.31%. Natural gas held at $2.86 per MMBtu. Gold fell $164 to $4,663 as the oil-driven inflation outlook pushed rate-cut expectations further out.
Brent has now gained roughly 50% since the war began on February 28. At $109, it sits about $10 below the March 30 intraday high near $119. If the April 6 deadline passes without progress, the March highs are the next target. If a deal materializes, the floor is somewhere around $85 to $90, where the back of the futures curve has been sitting all month.