Skip to navigationSkip to main contentSkip to right columnADVERTISEMENTTobi Opeyemi AmureThu, July 23, 2026 at 4:03 AM GMT+2 6 min readForecasting is mostly a way of buying peace of mind. You want a number for the worst case so you can decide how frightened to be, and once you have that number, you quietly stop thinking and start bracing for it.That instinct is not irrational. It is how you decide whether to refinance, whether to take the job across town, whether the August road trip is still on.Then late February arrived, and the worst case got a number.When the United States and Israel struck Iran on Feb. 28, Tehran shut the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow channel that carries roughly a fifth of the world's oil and refined products. The forecasts that followed were not subtle. Trading desks talked about crude at $150 a barrel. Some of them talked about $200.You ran that math in your head. Most drivers did. One tank, times 52 weeks, times two cars in the driveway.Five months later, that number still has not shown up. Brent crude futures peaked around $126 a barrel, comfortably below the 2008 record of $147, and averaged roughly $101 between the start of the war and June 11, before briefly retreating to prewar levels near $70 in early July, according to Reuters.The distance between that forecast and your actual receipt is one of the most underrated personal finance stories of the year. It is also worth real money to you.What 5 months of war actually did to oil pricesStart with what a closed Hormuz is supposed to mean. About 20% of the world's oil and refined products move through it, and before the war, 100 to 130 ships passed through the waterway daily, according to AAA. Traffic has been a fraction of that for most of the year.That is the textbook definition of a supply shock. The textbook says prices go vertical and stay there.Related: JPMorgan sends blunt verdict on oil, economyThey did not. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, has swung between roughly $68 and nearly $113 since the fighting began, AAA reported. It sat near $85 on Tuesday, July 21.At the pump, the damage was real but bounded. Here is the shape of it.Feb. 28: This is the day the strikes began: the national average for regular gas was $2.98 a gallon, according to AAA.May 21: The national average peaked at $4.56, its high for 2026, AAA reported.Early July: Brent briefly retreated to prewar levels near $70 a barrel, Reuters reported.July 20: The national average climbed back above $4 for the first time since June 17, AAA said.July 21:WTI traded near $85, roughly $18 higher than a year earlier, according to AAA.5 reasons the oil price spike never showed upTerms and Privacy PolicyEU DSA contactPrivacy & Cookie SettingsMore Info