Brent Heads for 12% Weekly Drop After Midterm Rout Despite Friday Rebound

At 9.03am UAE time on Friday, Brent was up 1.68 per cent at $99.94 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate was 1.33 per cent higher at $91.72, according to prices reported by The National. WTI is on course for a weekly fall of about 12.1 per cent.

Most of the damage came on Wednesday. After Democrats won both the House of Representatives and the Senate, both benchmarks fell more than 8 per cent to their lowest settlements since August 31. Brent closed 8.7 per cent lower at $94.62 and WTI fell 8.3 per cent to $88.12. Prices recovered part of that on Thursday and rose again in early Friday trading.

The swing matters for Gulf producers and their budgets. Crude has been volatile since the war with Iran began in late February, and the election has added a new question: whether Washington's appetite for continuing the conflict has changed. Traders took the result as a rebuke of President Donald Trump's handling of the war. Vice President JD Vance said as much in a post on X on Wednesday: "The reason we lost is the war. The President himself said so last night."

Trump has said a decision on the war is close. After meeting his national security advisers, he told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday: "Now we will make a decision." He said he would "rather not destroy the rest of the country if possible, but maybe I will have to," and added, "You'll know soon enough." Diplomacy is also continuing. Qatar's emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, discussed regional de-escalation efforts with Trump in a phone call on Friday, according to a statement from Doha, a day after an Iranian official said Tehran had sent a nuclear proposal to Washington through Qatar.

Risks to physical supply are what is holding prices up. Tehran said on Thursday that three more ships had been struck in the Strait of Hormuz, where tankers have come under Iranian attack. Further south, the Houthis declared a blockade on Saudi shipping in July and have attacked Saudi tankers in the Bab Al Mandeb strait. Saudi Arabia shut its East-West crude pipeline, a key route around Hormuz, from September 11 to 22 after drone attacks that Riyadh said were launched from Iraq. The Houthis claimed more attacks on pumping stations along the pipeline in late October.

The week's fall leaves Brent well below its peak for the conflict. Futures briefly went above $126 a barrel in late April, then eased as talks to end the crisis got under way. Where prices go next is likely to depend on Trump's decision whether to resume strikes on Iran or pursue an agreement, and on whether the Qatari-mediated proposals lead to Hormuz reopening.