The week that ended 28 June 2026 will be remembered as one of the most consequential in the energy calendar since the Strait of Hormuz closed in late February. The physical reopening of the world's most critical oil chokepoint has begun, but the word "reopening" flatters the reality: shipping traffic through Hormuz remains a fraction of pre-war levels, Iran continues to assert authority over the waterway and the diplomatic architecture underpinning the ceasefire is fragile in ways that no oil futures curve can fully capture.
Meanwhile, the damage wrought by four months of supply disruption—to Qatari LNG infrastructure, to global demand, to OPEC's internal cohesion and to the investment psychologies of upstream operators from Houston to Abu Dhabi—is structural, not transient. The market is not returning to February 2026. It is building toward something different: a world of lower-than-expected prices, higher-than-expected costs, an OPEC facing existential questions and a US industry that is adding rigs faster than at any point in four years even as producers question whether the economics will hold. Against that backdrop, here are the ten stories that defined the week.
1. Ras Tanura roars back to life
The week's most symbolically charged moment arrived on Friday when Saudi Aramco resumed crude loadings at its Ras Tanura terminal after a near four-month halt, with two Very Large Crude Carriers controlled by Saudi tanker giant Bahri loading crude at the world's biggest oil export facility. It was the clearest signal yet that the Gulf supply machine is beginning to rebuild. The scale of what was lost is sobering: the conflict caused Saudi crude exports to slump to roughly 4m b/d over the past three months, down from more than 7m b/d in February. Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE also issued crude tenders last week, adding to the broad push among Gulf producers to restore export volumes as fast as logistics and mine-clearance operations allow.
2. The fragile ceasefire
Just as the recovery narrative gathered momentum, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps struck a Singapore-flagged commercial vessel in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday evening, near the Oman coast. UK Maritime Trade Operations suspended its escort duty through the strait following the attack, reigniting deep anxiety about whether the preliminary ceasefire will hold. Iran's Persian Gulf Strait Authority warned bluntly that any passage outside its designated routes would receive no safety guarantee. Several vessels turned back. By Friday evening, Trump had posted on TruthSocial that Iran had violated the ceasefire terms, adding "you'll find out" when asked whether there would be consequences—a formulation that rattled markets before oil prices continued their broader decline. WTI ended the week on track for a third consecutive weekly loss, as the cumulative weight of returning supply outweighed the single-day scare.
3. Washington issues sweeping Iran sanctions waiver
In a landmark diplomatic and market event earlier in the week, the US Treasury issued a wide-ranging 60-day exemption—General License X—allowing Iran to produce and sell crude oil, petrochemicals and petroleum products in US dollars through 21 August, with vessels and entities previously subject to sanctions also cleared for transactions. The waiver theoretically reopens the door to US imports of Iranian crude for the first time since the 1990s. Iranian oil tankers carrying roughly 21m bl exited the strait in June, while at least 20 vessels stranded in the Gulf for more than three months have now cleared the waterway. Oil shipments through Hormuz rose to around 4.8m b/d—a meaningful step towards normalisation, but still well short of the pre-war rate of approximately 15m b/d.
4. Saudi Arabia prepares the deepest OSP cut in years
Saudi Aramco is expected to slash the official selling price (OSP) of its flagship Arab Light crude for Asia in August by $6.50–8.00/bl. All other Saudi grades—Arab Extra Light, Arab Medium and Arab Heavy—are expected to see equivalent reductions. The cuts would represent one of the most dramatic single-month OSP adjustments in years and reflect the speed with which Middle Eastern benchmark crude prices have collapsed as Hormuz traffic recovers. The move signals that Riyadh is prioritising market share restoration over price defence — a posture with significant implications for OPEC cohesion and for competing Atlantic Basin producers.
5. Trump’s DOJ probe into pump prices
Washington's relationship with the industry turned confrontational mid-week. Trump wrote on TruthSocial that the major oil companies were failing to pass on sharply lower crude prices at the pump and instructed the Department of Justice to investigate price-gouging by refiners and producers, subsequently naming ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP specifically. The US national average for a gallon of regular gasoline stood at $3.928 as of Wednesday—well above Trump's stated target of roughly $2.25—though fuel prices have been falling for six consecutive weeks. The American Petroleum Institute pushed back, as did most economists, pointing to normal lag dynamics between crude and retail fuel pricing. The political pressure, however, is unlikely to ease ahead of midterm elections.
5. The Baker Hughes rig boost
A sharp counterpoint to the bearish price mood: the Baker Hughes weekly rig count for the week ending 26 June showed US oil and gas rigs rising to 573 active units, a gain of ten rigs week-on-week and the largest single-week increase since June 2022. Oil-directed rigs climbed from 433 to 440 over the fortnight to 26 June, representing a meaningful sequential acceleration. The data reflects capital decisions made months ago at much higher price assumptions and illustrates the lag between upstream planning and market reality. That it coincided with WTI trading near $69/bl—roughly $43 below its April peak—underscores the analytical tension now facing operators: activity is rising precisely as the price environment that justified it begins to erode.
7. IEA flags a looming 2026 supply surplus
The IEA's June Oil Market Report delivered a sobering double message. Global supply is projected to fall by 3.9m b/d, to 102.4m b/d in 2026, before rebounding by 8m b/d in 2027 as Middle Eastern exports normalise following the interim US-Iran agreement. But the agency cautioned that operational and political constraints—prolonged demining, unresolved transit arrangements and the pace of restart—leave significant downside risks to that rebound. Equally significant: the IEA now forecasts global oil demand to decline by 1.1m b/d year-on-year in 2026, a dramatic revision from pre-war expectations of modest growth. The combination of recovering supply and structurally damaged demand is focusing market attention on what happens to prices once the Gulf machine fully restarts.
8. Iraq’s OPEC quit threat?
Iraq is pressing OPEC for a higher production quota as it seeks to recover revenues lost during the Hormuz closure, and officials briefly raised—then walked back—the possibility of leaving the producer group altogether. Baghdad's frustration reflects a broader OPEC dilemma: producers who lost enormous revenues want to pump more to compensate, but any coordinated volume increase risks accelerating the price decline already underway. This comes after the UAE's formal withdrawal from OPEC in May, effective 1 May, leaving the alliance further diminished in both output and credibility. The White House's declaration that Trump had "broken OPEC" may be premature and is an oft-cliched line by OPEC cynics, but the fractures are real.
9. Ukraine strikes Karachaganak—the energy war spreads to Central Asia
Kazakhstan has cut gas production at its giant Karachaganak field by roughly a quarter after Ukrainian drones struck a Russian gas processing plant earlier in the week that handles output from the field. The attack is part of Kyiv's sustained campaign of targeting Russian energy infrastructure and marks a significant geographic escalation—the damage is now reverberating through supply chains well beyond Russia's borders. Karachaganak, operated by a consortium including Shell, Eni and Chevron, is one of the largest oil and gas condensate fields in the world. The production cut adds to already strained global refined product markets at a moment when the recovery from Hormuz disruptions is only partial.
10. LNG winter supply anxiety builds
QatarEnergy has confirmed that 12mt/yr of its 77mt/yr liquefaction capacity is damaged and possibly unavailable for the next 3–5 years, with additional risk of delays to the 48mt/yr under construction. Regional hostilities have effectively sidelined more than 80mt/yr of LNG capacity globally, and even in optimistic peace scenarios, markets are unlikely to begin softening materially until 2028. Qatar's response—quietly tendering crude for loading outside the Strait of Hormuz for July and August delivery, likely the first such offering since the war began—signals the emirate is managing its export exposure with considerable caution. With China poised to return as a major spot LNG buyer in August and European storage injections still critical ahead of winter, the conditions for another bout of severe gas price volatility are assembling. The Strait of Hormuz may be reopening. Qatar's infrastructure is not.
11. ADNOC, BP and TotalEnergies sign world's largest gas cap deal
Amid the crisis, a major long-term investment signal: ADNOC has brought BP and TotalEnergies into Abu Dhabi's biggest gas cap project, with both European majors taking 10% stakes each in a consortium developing one of Abu Dhabi's largest onshore gas fields, targeting production of up to 1.5bcf/d. The Bab Gas Cap Development and Production Concession represents the largest gas cap development project of its kind globally, with production capacity equivalent to around 15% of ADNOC Gas' total operational processing capacity. The project aligns with the UAE's push for gas self-sufficiency and expanded LNG export capacity—and with the post-crisis lesson that supply security and diversity of source have never mattered more. For BP and TotalEnergies, it is a statement that long-cycle upstream investment remains very much on the table despite energy transition pressures
12. China's return to the oil market looms as the next price shock
China's behaviour during the crisis has been one of the most important—and underappreciated—stories of the past four months. China went from importing around 11m b/d on average over the past five years to about 7.8m b/d in May, its lowest level in nearly a decade, with China's import reduction making up about 74% of the world's decrease in global crude oil trade. That withdrawal helped prevent a full-blown price catastrophe. But the relief may be temporary. JPMorgan says China will be a major oil buyer once again in August, with a return to import levels closer to 11 or 12m b/d potentially absorbing a significant portion of excess Atlantic Basin crude and providing support for Brent prices through the second half of 2026. If China re-enters markets aggressively just as Europe is competing for LNG ahead of winter, the combination could trigger another sharp price spike.
13. Ukraine knocks out Moscow oil refinery
A major second-front energy story that deserves more global attention than it has received: Ukraine targeted the Moscow oil refinery with drones on 16 June and 18 June 2026, in two of the most intense UAV attacks on Moscow since the war began. The consequences for Russian supply are serious. The Moscow refinery is highly unlikely to resume production before 2027 after suffering extensive structural damage from multiple strikes, with a primary fuel refining unit that commands roughly 53% of the plant's overall processing capacity compromised. The facility, operated by Gazprom Neft, supplies aviation fuel to Moscow's four major airports. The strikes are part of Ukraine's broader strategy of targeting energy infrastructure to pressure Russia toward negotiations, and they add another layer of complexity to already-strained global refined product markets.