Brent falls 5.3% for the week to $89 as the Iran standoff holds and Hormuz tanker traffic stays light

Crude got cheaper this week even with Iran and the United States no closer to any deal. Brent was near $89.17 a barrel late Friday, down 5.3% on the week. WTI was $83.19, off 4.3%. A hot standoff in the Persian Gulf usually pushes prices up, and this one didn't.

Part of the reason is what the tankers are doing. Vessel-tracking firms say traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is still well below where it was before the tensions started, and the market is treating that thinner flow as the working baseline instead of a fresh shock. For jobbers, cheaper crude could feed into lower wholesale gasoline and diesel over the next couple of weeks, if refiners pass it through.

Russian refineries burning

Ukrainian drones hit the Yaroslavl refinery on August 28, one of Russia's larger plants, and set off a fire. Kstovo was struck in a night Ukraine flew 426 drones, using FP-1 models. This is foreign, but it touches your diesel. Every barrel of Russian distillate knocked offline is product that doesn't reach the export market, and a tighter global diesel pool tends to firm up prices everywhere, including the cargoes that set US Gulf and East Coast distillate. If the strikes keep landing on refining rather than crude output, diesel could hold firmer than the crude slide would suggest.

Renewable diesel supply

Canadian oil sands output is down on maintenance and operational pullbacks, and that's pressuring conventional diesel margins and distillate availability up north. XCF Global is using the moment to push its renewable diesel and SAF model, built around its New Rise Renewables plant in Reno turning distillers corn oil and other waste feedstock into drop-in fuel. The pitch is feedstock independence, product that doesn't ride crude prices or pipeline snags. For operators in LCFS states, more domestic renewable diesel volume could ease some of the tightness, though the reported growth is the company's own number.

Refinery waivers

Trump is weighing small refinery exemptions under the Renewable Fuel Standard, and farm groups are warning the waivers could cut biofuel demand. Anyone who blends should follow this closely. More exemptions mean fewer gallons of ethanol and biodiesel obligated into the pool, which moves RIN prices and the economics of every blend decision downstream. Nothing is decided yet.

What to watch

Whether the Hormuz tanker count recovers or stays light, which tells you if this crude softness holds. Whether Ukraine keeps hitting Russian refining and how much distillate that pulls from export. And how far Trump goes on the small refinery exemptions, since that lands straight on RIN costs and blend margins.