Finance Brief: Oil snaps back after the Hormuz strikes, while Azerbaijan's oil fund passes a huge milestone
Finance Brief: Oil snaps back after the Hormuz strikes, while Azerbaijan's oil fund passes a huge milestone
Oil prices swung hard in both directions in two days, and the trigger was the same place both times: the Strait of Hormuz. For anyone watching fuel bills, Turkish factory costs or the region's oil money, the message is that geopolitics is now a weekly input cost, not a background risk.
Brent crude settled Monday at 104.77 dollars a barrel, down 7.63 percent on hopes for US-Iran diplomacy, then rose to about 105.25 dollars in Tuesday morning trade after reports of US strikes on Iran's Qeshm Island. US West Texas Intermediate followed the same path, settling Monday at 96.46 dollars and trading near 96.93 dollars on Tuesday morning. Gold held near 3,955 dollars an ounce on Tuesday morning after settling the previous session around 3,954 dollars. Goldman Sachs has raised its Brent target to 105 dollars, from 90 dollars, a sign that banks now expect the risk premium to stick around.
Azerbaijan's numbers tell the other side of the same story. The State Oil Fund has transferred 180.04 billion manat to the state budget since it was created, including 9.63 billion manat in the first nine months of 2026, and its assets stood at 74 billion dollars at the end of September. That is the cushion behind Baku's spending power.
Uzbekistan's reserves are moving the same way. The country's gold reserves grew by 55 tonnes in the first nine months of the year, with sales only in April and July, according to Daryo. Foreign tech companies, including Apple and Google, paid 232.8 billion soums in tax in Uzbekistan in January to September, across 109 companies selling electronic services. And Kazakhstan's Alatau City project signed nine agreements worth 1.3 billion dollars on day one of its London roadshow.
Levels to watch: Brent's Monday low near 103.47 dollars is the line that held, and a break below it would signal the market believes diplomacy is winning. A sustained move back above 110 dollars would signal the opposite, that Hormuz risk is being priced as a lasting disruption. For Turkish importers and households, the difference shows up fast in fuel and transport costs.
Information only, not financial advice.
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