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The week in brief · Week 41 · 5–11 October
The war around the Strait of Hormuz set the tone for energy markets again this week. Attacks on shipping intensified, ending in the busiest single day of strikes this month, and Brent stayed well above $100 a barrel. Europe's gas system, already short of storage, has little room for another shock. Away from the fuel markets, a new cost study confirmed that batteries are now the cheapest way to add peak capacity in most of the world, and grid operators in Europe kept rewiring their balancing markets to use them.
Eleven ships were attacked in and around the Strait of Hormuz between 5 and 11 October. Nine of them were tankers, including an LNG carrier damaged on Monday, and six vessels were hit on Sunday alone, one of them abandoned with two crew missing. Before the war, roughly a quarter of the world's seaborne oil and a fifth of its LNG moved through the strait.
Prices reflected the risk rather than any physical change in supply. Brent stood at $105.81 a barrel early on Monday and at $108.33 on Thursday morning, about $42 higher than a year earlier. The seven OPEC+ members that carry voluntary cuts agreed on 4 October to hold November output at September levels and will meet again on 1 November (OPEC, 2026). With the main export route under fire, quotas say little about how many barrels actually reach buyers.
