What’s next for oil prices after the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and OPEC+’s decision to raise output by 188,000 barrels per day starting August 1?
On Monday, July 6, 2026, both WTI and Brent crude fell by more than 1%, pressured by the decision of seven OPEC+ producers - Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman - to once again increase supply following the voluntary production cuts introduced earlier this year.
Brent futures dropped as much as 1.4% to $71.10 a barrel, while WTI futures slipped 1.1% to $67.89 before trimming losses and moving only modestly lower.
The move was largely anticipated, however, as analysts had already priced in the additional OPEC+ barrels.
The key question now is where crude prices head next following the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which has allowed shipping traffic — disrupted during the US-Iran conflict — to recover to roughly 40% of its pre-war capacity.
Not everything has normalized, though.
Shipping companies are still dealing with the risks posed by mines and elevated war-risk insurance premiums.
What is clear is that the numbers tell a compelling story: following the mid-June agreement reached between Iran and the Trump administration, oil prices fell sharply and almost immediately.
After surging above $120 a barrel in the first days of the conflict, crude repeatedly retraced lower, with Brent stabilizing in the $72-$75 range and WTI trading between $69 and $72 on the NYMEX.
Oil prices retreat after fragile US-Iran deal. Will the decline last?
Can we really say the oil shock - and the inflationary spike it triggered globally - is now over?
According to Eric Croak, CFP and Accredited Wealth Management Advisor, President of Croak Capital, an Ohio based fiduciary financial firm with $300 million under management, “oil prices should stabilize”.
He added:
“Look no further than the shipping market for the tell. War-risk insurance on tankers transiting the Gulf traded as much as 10x higher during the Hormuz scare, and those rates typically take 6-9 months to work their way back to normal. That trades as a $3-$5/barrel floor on Brent once the headlines completely fade. Conversely, OPEC+ has over 5 million barrels per day of spare capacity, and that is a hard ceiling on any rally. My range on Brent thru December is $78 to $88. Upside risk absolutely remains should geopolitics decide to roil the markets again, but in my opinion we stall out around $95 barring a second attempt to close Hormuz. The $84.50 consensus looks fair to me... maybe even a tick high”.
Is the oil shock really over?
Beyond price targets, can we genuinely say the oil shock is behind us especially after predictions from Qatar earlier this year that crude could spike to $150 a barrel?
Croak, who was named to Forbes’ 2026 Top Next-Gen Wealth Advisors, remains cautious.
“It’s complicated. The shock really ended from a pricing perspective. 20 million barrels per day move through Hormuz, but 5 million barrels per day can be rerouted via bypass pipelines in Saudi Arabia and the UAE if needed. That redundancy was not present to this degree 10 years ago”.
The real issue, he argues, is the duration of disruptions:
“The 2022 saga took roughly 9 months to unwind. This panic was over in half the time. Satellite tanker tracking, strategic stockpile usage, and faster rerouting capabilities compressed the panic period. There is still structural exposure to any hijacking of Hormuz or any other shipping chokepoint, but the trend is that every subsequent disruption causes a shorter and less intense spike than the one before it”.
Looking ahead 12 to 18 months, Croak sees OPEC+ policy as the single most important driver of crude prices: the cartel is gradually reintroducing 2 to 3 million barrels per day of previously withheld production into a market where underlying demand is growing by less than 1 million barrels per day.
“OPEC+ policy has your best bet at driving oil prices over the next 12 to 18 months, and honestly it beats the other drivers by a country mile. They are funneling back 2-to-3 million barrels of withheld supply into a market growing less than 1 million per day via fundamental demand”.
At the same time, additional supply growth is coming from Guyana, Brazil and US shale production, which together are adding nearly another million barrels per day.
As a result, Croak believes quarterly OPEC+ quota decisions now move prices more than geopolitical headlines themselves. Demand remains the key swing factor:
“Demand weakness is our tiebreaker since a weak China morphs any supply addition into a 5-to-8 percent slide versus oil powers through it if China stays firm. Geopolitics can still grab us in the short-run and send oil spiking for 2 weeks, but those don’t matter 90 days later. Seriously, pay attention to the quota tables… because that’s where 2027 pricing is decided”.
Hormuz reopening is not necessarily a sign of stability
A more cautious view comes from Wesley Herche, co-founder of Sustainability Decoded and a veteran of global energy markets who previously served within the U.S. Intelligence Officer, then shaped energy strategy inside Amazon and Prologis, where he now helps some of the world’s largest companies, including Maersk, Starbucks, and Coca-Cola, reposition for a new global energy paradigm. Bu
Herche warned that the reopening of Hormuz should not automatically be interpreted as a sign of lasting market stability.
He stressed that oil remains uniquely vulnerable because production is concentrated in a limited number of regions while most physical flows depend on a handful of narrow maritime chokepoints, Hormuz chief among them:
“The reopening took the immediate pressure off prices, and the lower consensus numbers reflect that. I would be careful reading it as stability, though. The vulnerability behind the spike is specific to oil as a fuel: it gets extracted in a handful of places and most of it moves through a handful of narrow waterways, Hormuz being the biggest”.
Herche added that for “most of the last century that fragility never registered as unusual, because every form of energy we had worked roughly the same way and there was nothing to compare it against. There is now, which I suspect is part of why this episode landed as hard as it did”.
Consider that “the closure of a single strait shifted the 2026 Brent consensus by roughly six dollars in a single month”.
Herche therefore expects upside risks to quickly return if tensions in the Gulf flare up again, even well short of another full closure of Hormuz. China’s electrification push is becoming a major oil-market variable
Herche identified three major structural drivers likely to shape oil prices over the next 12 to 18 months.
1) Chokepoint geography. Hormuz is not unique, and markets keep treating each disruption as a one-off rather than a recurring feature of how oil physically moves. That habit is why forecasts swing so violently when one happens.
2) OPEC+ discipline against non-OPEC supply growth, especially how quickly U.S. shale responds if prices recover and hold.
3) The slow erosion of oil demand from electrification, transport above all. It does not move prices week to week, but it is quietly undermining the long-run demand assumptions that petrotech valuations rest on. Earlier this year, China, the largest heavy-duty truck market in the world, reached the milestone of more than 50% of heavy-duty truck sales are now fully electric. In 2025, just China’s EV exports outstripped the combined total car output of all US automakers. This trend is not slowing down, nor reversing.
Some analysts believe the most acute phase of the rally is over
Market analyst Saverio Berlinzani also told Money.it that maritime traffic recovered more quickly than expected following the memorandum of understanding signed between the United States and Iran.
That recovery prompted several major investment banks to sharply lower second-half oil price forecasts, bringing Brent expectations down to a $71-$73 range and WTI forecasts to $68-$70.
Overall, Berlinzani argues that while the global oil market remains structurally fragile, it is currently experiencing a temporary phase of price normalization:
“In the near future, crude oil prices will be primarily influenced by the fading of the geopolitical risk premium, the gradual return of OPEC+ production, and the persistent slowdown in global demand. The market has moved past the acute phase of the price spikes - exceeding $100–$114 - seen in recent months, shifting course toward a potential structural surplus”.
