Oil ends the day on a high but plummets in the week with expectations for an agreement on Hormuz

Traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), WTI oil for September closed up 1.15% (US$0.89), at US$78.18 per barrel.

Brent oil for October, traded on London's Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), closed up 1.29% (US$1.06), at US$83.55 a barrel. During the week, WTI accumulated a drop of 7.6% and Brent fell 4.98%.

Negotiations between the United States and Iran lost pace in the final stretch of the week, amid reports of clashes on the Yemeni border and the intensification of Houthi actions against Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea.

The scenario supported the rise in oil prices, while investors await an outcome to negotiations seeking to reopen and organize traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. At the beginning of the week, American President Donald Trump stated that an agreement to resume navigation on the route could be reached "in the next few days", which, so far, has not materialized.

Ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz fell 33% this Friday compared to the previous day, with the majority of vessels using the Iranian route, according to data from Kpler. Activity in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait increased by 18%, to 26 confirmed crossings.

Baringa energy analyst Ellen Fraser assesses that the situation in the Middle East has become more fragile because the main shock absorber in the energy market has been, to a large extent, the level of global stocks. "But that cushion is deteriorating, and inventories are at their lowest level in a decade," he said.

In parallel, Bloomberg reported that China's oil imports rebounded last month from a nearly decade-long low as flows through the Strait of Hormuz increased and refiners increased purchases from countries outside the Middle East, including Russia.

*With information from Dow Jones Newswires