Perhaps the strangest thing about Brent crossing $100 again is how unsurprising it has begun to feel. Six months into the Iran war, traders are still trying to establish how much oil is actually moving through the Strait of Hormuz, tankers are disappearing from tracking systems, attacks are spreading towards alternative export routes, and a geopolitical premium appears increasingly embedded in energy prices. Yet the global economy continues expanding, investors remain remarkably willing to take risk and policymakers increasingly discuss disruption as though it were simply another variable to feed into their models.

Could this be what analysts are beginning to call the “new, new normal”?

There was a time when roughly 20 million barrels of oil passing through Hormuz every day was one of those facts markets barely needed to think about. That certainty has vanished. The US administration claimed more than 17 million barrels crossed under naval supervision on August 31. Kpler, an energy-data firm that tracks global oil flows using satellite imagery, vessel signals, port records, and shipping intelligence, put the figure at perhaps six million barrels. More recent industry data has put flows below two million barrels per day. Tankers increasingly travel “dark”, satellite visibility has been reduced, and competing American and Iranian restrictions have turned the world’s most important energy artery into something approaching a statistical guessing game.

How exactly does an oil market price supply when it cannot confidently measure it?

Apparently, by putting a price on uncertainty itself. Brent breached $100 on Wednesday for the first time........

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