The week since Issue #34 (Jul 27) saw the war widen geographically before a genuine diplomatic turn. Wednesday Jul 29, a drone struck the US-owned LNG floating storage vessel Energos Winter at Egypt’s Damietta port on the Mediterranean, with fire spreading to a second LNG tanker, GasLog Salem; Egypt’s cabinet confirmed Thursday it was a drone attack rather than an accident. No group has claimed responsibility — Euronews reports Iranian state TV had flagged Damietta as a possible retaliation site against “Ukrainian interests” two days earlier, following a Ukrainian strike on an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea, an unconfirmed but notable attribution angle. This is the first attack on Egyptian soil this war, landing directly on the Suez Canal/Sumed pipeline corridor that has become the last remaining safe route for Saudi oil after Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb both degraded; Sumed crude loadings had already risen to 28.79 million barrels in July from 19.52 million in June (Kpler) on exactly this rerouting. GEF’s own AIS audit independently shows the Energos Winter still tracking near the Suez/Port Said approach days after the strike.
The same week, the direct US-Iran military channel fully reopened. Iran’s IRGC launched a surprise ballistic-missile attack on a US base in Jordan Tuesday evening (5:45pm ET) — all intercepted, no casualties. Wednesday, the US and Saudi Arabia struck Iran-aligned militias in Iraq, killing at least 20 fighters and 6 Iranian advisers, and that evening US forces completed a “heavy wave” of direct strikes on Iran itself: dozens of IRGC targets including military command centers, missile and drone facilities, and coastal surveillance sites. Separately, Kazakhstan’s CPC terminal suspended Black Sea loadings again Thursday after two more tankers were attacked overnight near Novorossiysk — the Marshall Islands-flagged NISSOS SIFNOS was hit while loading Tengizchevroil (Chevron) crude — just three days after resuming from the prior week-long suspension. Brent settled Wednesday up 7.91%, one of the sharpest single-day spikes of the war.
Then the picture turned again. Friday, Iran’s IRGC claimed it hit two tankers transiting Hormuz under US military escort, with four more turned back (per PressTV) — Western maritime authorities have not confirmed this. Brent settled Friday at $87.93 (+1.21%), WTI at $84.67 (+1.29%), capping a ~24-26% gain for July, the strongest monthly move for both benchmarks since March. Over the weekend, President Trump said the US and Israel agreed to defer planned new strikes on Iran — by his account, after Iran and other Middle Eastern countries asked for the pause — citing agreed deal “parameters”: an “Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT” and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat, with Israel “joining” the commitment. Iranian state media gave no indication Tehran had requested the pause.
More concretely, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told the cabinet Sunday that negotiations with Oman over managing the strait are “nearing completion” and “on the way to being finalized” — the furthest either side has gone on the diplomatic track since the Jun 17 MoU collapsed. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei cautioned that an Iran-Oman understanding on a new maritime route does not necessarily mean the strait itself is being opened or closed, and Iran continues to insist Hormuz will never return to its pre-war status. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman called Trump Saturday urging him to “prioritise dialogue” and “reduce escalation”; Axios separately reported MBS had expressed concern over Trump’s plans for large new strikes. Al Jazeera’s own reporting from Tehran flagged the healthy skepticism warranted here: Iran has an established pattern this cycle of pairing “talks going well” messaging with simultaneous confrontational rhetoric, and a materially similar-sounding claim (the Jun 17 MoU) had already collapsed once.
Crude reversed hard on the combination of Friday’s claimed attack and the weekend’s diplomatic signals: Brent fell 5.16% Monday to $83.39, WTI fell 5.9% to $79.66 — one of the sharpest single-day drops of the entire war, the mirror image of the sharpest single-day rises seen after past strikes. CENTCOM says its blockade enforcement has now redirected 35 commercial vessels and disabled two. On market plumbing: the official EIA release for the week ending Jul 24 showed a much larger-than-expected commercial crude draw of 7.167 million barrels (vs a 1.3 million forecast) — a genuine tightening signal — while the SPR sits at 307.7 Mbbl, its lowest level in over 43 years. EU gas storage, by contrast, has genuinely improved: GEF’s own direct GIE AGSI+ read reached 55.35% by Jul 26, the first clean on-pace reading this cycle for the relaxed 80% Nov 1 target.
For the full risk matrix and this week’s Analyst Outlook — including GEF’s base-case, downside and upside scenarios for the coming week — see the Risk Analysis page; for the live chokepoint picture, see Marine Traffic; for the shortage map, see Shortages.