Oil prices fell as trading opened on Monday, November 9, after US President Donald Trump said he was highly unlikely to order fresh attacks on Iran as long as talks to end the conflict progress, even as both countries reported that shipping had been hit in or near the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude was down 64 cents, or 0.64%, to $97.67 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) fell 35 cents, or 0.40%, to $90.51 a barrel, Reuters reported from Perth. Brent briefly fell by more than $1 a barrel in early trade.

Source: Reuters

The opening fall extended one of the sharpest weekly drops of the war. Investing.com put Brent's January contract down 0.75% at $97.58 by 7:02 p.m. ET on Sunday, and said Brent had dropped more than 16% the previous week. Brent had settled at $98.32 a barrel on Friday, November 6, down from $104.77 on November 2. Prices plunged after Democrats won both chambers of Congress in last week's US midterm elections, raising expectations that lawmakers will press Trump to end the conflict.

Source: Investing.com via MLQ

The market was pricing Trump's own words from Sunday: in a phone interview with CNN he tied any new strikes to whether Tehran signs what he called a very strong agreement. Read the earlier story: Trump tells CNN new Iran strikes are 'highly unlikely' — but cites 38 bridges

What Trump said — and what he threatened

"It depends on whether or not they sign a very strong agreement," Trump told CNN in the phone interview. "The answer is, highly unlikely it's going to be necessary." But he kept the threat on the table: he said the US has identified infrastructure targets including 38 bridges that it could knock down "in literally one hour", said three US aircraft carriers in the region — one newly arrived — are "fully locked and loaded", demanded that Iran fully open the strait and agree never to develop a nuclear weapon, and called Iran "a failing nation". In a later Truth Social post he said Task Force Iron Gate — the new CENTCOM task force extending the blockade to Iran's land borders and the Caspian Sea — is "in full force and effect".

Trump had hinted at renewing major attacks on Iran after the midterm elections, but there has been no sign of a large-scale US military operation. Iran has said it would respond to new attacks by striking US and Israeli targets, Reuters reported.

Source: Reuters

A weekend of fire around the Strait of Hormuz

The price fall came despite a weekend of fresh incidents in and around the strait. On Saturday the US military said its air force fired precision munitions at the stern of the St. Kitts-flagged merchant vessel M/V Huda in the Gulf of Oman, disabling it as it tried to get through the naval blockade of Iranian ports. Iran's Revolutionary Guards Navy said oil tankers had caught fire after hitting mines while attempting to pass through an "unauthorized route" in the Strait of Hormuz — a claim Reuters said it was not able to confirm — and Iranian media reported explosions in southern coastal areas including Qeshm Island. Every claim from the weekend is attributed to the side that made it; none of the reported vessel strikes has been independently confirmed.

Supply news that would normally push prices up also failed to lift the market. Production was suspended on Sunday at Khor Mor, one of the largest gas fields in Iraq's Kurdistan region, after a single drone struck its LPG storage tank and started a fire, two sources at the region's electricity ministry told Reuters; the ministry said about 2.8 gigawatts of the region's power generation was lost, and no group claimed responsibility. Traders still marked oil down — a sign that, for now, hopes of a negotiated end to the war outweigh even a live supply shock in Iraq.

Source: Reuters via MLQ

Background: the war, the blockade and the talks

The United States and Israel launched the war on Iran on February 28, 2026, and the fighting has run for more than eight months. The Strait of Hormuz, between Iran and Oman, carried about one-fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas before the war. US Central Command says its months-long naval blockade has prevented Iran from exporting crude oil worth more than $25 billion — yaani about 2,500 crore dollars of oil kept off the market. Iran has submitted a nuclear proposal to Washington through mediator Qatar, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Thursday, saying the US was reviewing it but that discussions would depend on Washington first meeting Tehran's seven demands.

What it means for the Gulf's Punjabi and Indian workers

For the lakhs of Punjabi and Indian workers across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Iraq, every dollar on the oil price runs both ways: cheaper crude eases fuel and food costs at home in Punjab and across India, but a long war economy in the Gulf keeps jobs, flights and remittances under a cloud. Gulf stock markets gave their own verdict on the weekend's violence on Sunday, closing lower — Saudi Arabia's index fell 0.78% and Qatar's 0.51%, with Bahrain alone rising. Monday's oil open says traders are betting, cautiously, on talks rather than a new round of strikes — a bet that can reverse on a single incident in the strait.