Oil Market Weekly: Saudi Arabia Joins the Strikes, Kazakh Exports Collapse, Brent Tests $95 Resistance

The shortest truce of this war lasted 48 hours. On July 27, American-Iranian talks resumed and the fighting paused — by July 29, mutual attacks had ended the ceasefire, and Saudi Arabia openly joined the strikes for the first time, hitting Iran-backed forces in Iraq alongside the US.

That’s just one thread of this week’s oil brief. The others: Kazakhstan’s production has collapsed by more than half as CPC loadings at Novorossyisk keep stopping under drone threat; Baker Hughes sees global upstream spending falling in 2026 with Middle East rigs still 9% below February; Shell printed $9.84 bln in adjusted earnings with refining up +1,849% y/y; and US commercial crude stocks just fell 7.2 mln barrels — five times more than expected — while the strategic reserve keeps draining.

All of it converges on one number: $95 per barrel of Brent. That’s the wall, and whether it breaks depends on what happens next between the US, the Gulf states, Iran and Yemen.

I break down every one of these stories, with charts, in the full article on my Substack. Read it here: [LINK].

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