Oil Retreats Toward $104 as Saudi Arabia Reroutes Crude Through Hormuz

Crude prices fell for a second session on Thursday as Saudi Arabia moved to offset the shutdown of a key pipeline by shipping more barrels through the Strait of Hormuz. Brent futures lost $1.01 to settle at $104.82 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate shed 52 cents to close at $101.91.

The retreat follows a 2.7% drop in the prior session and unwinds part of the spike that carried Brent above $108 earlier in the week. Saudi officials signalled that roughly half of the damaged East-West pipeline's capacity could be restored within days, with full operations expected within about six weeks, easing concern that the outage would remove a durable volume of supply from the market.

The move cuts both ways across the portfolio. Producers including Chevron and BP give back some of the windfall from the earlier spike, while fuel-intensive operators such as Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and UPS get relief on input costs that had been squeezing margins. Diesel, which set a record national average of $5.85 a gallon earlier in the week, remains the pressure point for freight networks.