By Adam Clark
Friday's market holiday means oil futures won't start trading again until Sunday evening. But oil traders should watch developments in the Iran war anyway.
The U.S. on Friday experienced its first known loss of a jet inside Iran since the start of the war. A search-and-rescue operation was underway for the crew of a U.S. jet fighter that went down over Iran, The Wall Street Journal reported. Iranian state broadcaster IRIB said earlier Friday that an American warplane was targeted in central Iran by air defenses.
Commodity markets are largely closed for the Good Friday holiday, so oil contracts aren't trading.
President Donald Trump's Friday comments claiming the Strait of Hormuz can be reopened in the near future could also move oil markets.
"With a little more time, we can easily OPEN THE HORMUZ STRAIT, TAKE THE OIL, & MAKE A FORTUNE," Trump posted on Truth Social Friday.
The president didn't give any more details about how the crucial waterway -- which normally carries around 20% of the world's oil trade -- might be reopened in the face of Iran's effective closure of the strait to the majority of traffic.
There was also news from the U.N. Security Council, which was set to vote Friday morning on a draft resolution "to use all defensive means necessary and commensurate with the circumstances," to secure transit passage through the strait for at least six months. The vote appears to have been postponed, with no new date announced.
Trump has previously urged other countries to launch their own operation to wrest control of the strait from Iran.
French President Emmanuel Macron and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Friday said their countries would work together to stabilize the situation in the crucial waterway, in a joint press conference during a summit in Seoul, but did not elaborate on how they would do so, according to the Associated Press. Macron has previously said it would be unrealistic to force open the passage militarily.
Brent crude, the international standard, settled at $109.24 a barrel late on Thursday, while West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. standard, settled at $112.06 a barrel.
The rare situation where WTI prices appear higher than Brent is due to a discrepancy in contract timing, with the WTI market still trading the May contract as the soonest delivery month, while the Brent market has already rolled over to June. The WTI June contract settled at $97.75 a barrel.
A French-owned container ship has transited through the Strait of Hormuz, the first time a vessel with ties to Western Europe has been known to traverse the channel since Iran began blocking it at the start of the war, The Wall Street Journal reported.
However, fighting is continuing in the Middle East. Kuwait Petroleum, the country's national oil company, said its Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery was targeted in a drone attack, triggering fires, according to Kuwait state media.
Operations were suspended at Abu Dhabi's Habshan gas facilities Friday while authorities responded to a fire, according to the Abu Dhabi Media Office.
Iran is hardening defenses on Kharg Island, Ebrahim Azizi, the head of the parliament's National Security Commission, told the legislature's news agency this week. The island is the location of Iran's main crude export terminal, handling 85% to 95% of the country's oil exports.
Write to Adam Clark at adam.clark@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 03, 2026 11:56 ET (15:56 GMT)
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