Oil prices hit three-month low over US-Iran truce

Wall Street is looking favorably on the prospects for a US-Iran peace deal. Oil prices fell to a three-month low Monday (although still above pre-war levels) and several major banks cut their price forecasts. Natural gas prices could also see relief if Qatar follows through on plans to return to 80% of full production capacity at its LNG terminal within two months. Other steps needed to restart regular shipping traffic — from resetting insurance rates to scraping barnacles off tanker hulls — will take longer.

“For energy markets, this is a transition from acute disruption risk to managed geopolitical risk,” said Jorge Leon, Rystad Energy’s head of geopolitical analysis. But some close counters of oil barrels still think Wall Street is being pollyannish. “Many traders that ordinarily would use the futures market to express a bullish position on oil fundamentals were relegated to the sidelines,” Clay Seigle of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told me, “because you’re basically going up against Trump.”