Oil prices settled down by around 9% on Friday, April 17, 2026, after Iran said passage for all commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz was open for the remaining ceasefire period.
United States President Donald Trump disclosed that Iran has agreed to never close the strait again.
Brent crude futures settled down $9.01, or 9.07%, to $90.38 a barrel, after falling to a session low of $86.09, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures settled down $10.48, or 11.45%, at $83.85 a barrel, after touching a low of $80.56.
Both contracts made their largest daily declines since April 8.
All ships can sail through the Strait of Hormuz but this needs to be coordinated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a senior Iranian official told Reuters, adding that unfreezing Iranian funds was part of the deal.
“With the market now rapidly unwinding the extreme risk premium built over the past two weeks, crude is shifting back toward pricing actual flow normalization rather than disruption risk,” Gelber & Associates analysts said in a note.
Naira dips slightly at official market, settles at N1,343.6
Around 20 ships were seen moving from the Gulf towards the exit via the Strait of Hormuz, according to ship tracking data.
Trump said on Friday during a phone interview with Reuters that the U.S. will enter Iran at a “leisurely pace” to recover its enriched uranium and bring it back to the U.S.
Prices had already fallen earlier in the session as possible further talks between the U.S. and Iran over the weekend and a 10-day ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel raised investors’ hopes the war in the Middle East could be nearing an end.
Addressing a sticking point in the talks, Trump said Tehran had offered to not possess nuclear weapons for more than 20 years.
“We’re going to see what happens. But I think we’re very close to making a deal with Iran,” Trump told reporters outside the White House on Thursday.
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