Middle East Oil Price Today: Murban, Dubai & Storage

• Middle East oil price benchmarks extended their climb over the month to early October, with Murban crude up 7.3% to $110.82 a barrel and Brent up 6.2% to $102.25, putting Brent back above $100.
• Dubai crude rose 15.2% over the month to $113.71 a barrel, the sharpest move among regional benchmarks, leaving it $11.46 above Brent against a $2.44 premium in early September.
• As of early September, the Strait of Hormuz remained severely restricted rather than fully closed: independent ship-tracking data showed daily transits running at roughly 12-13% of the pre-war baseline, and the IRGC reported mines disabling tankers on routes it calls illegal.
• Saudi Arabia had accused Iran of a separate tanker attack that killed two Filipino crew, underscoring that the standoff was active and hazardous rather than settling toward resolution.
• OPEC+ held October production quotas unchanged after its 188,000 barrel-per-day increase for September, the group’s sixth consecutive monthly rise, completing the unwind of the 2023 voluntary cuts.

Middle East oil price benchmarks have extended their climb over the past month, with Murban crude, the UAE’s flagship export grade, up 7.3% to $110.82 a barrel from $103.30 in early September, while Brent has risen 6.2% to $102.25. The most recent shipping reports, from late August and early September, point to mine strikes and tanker attacks rather than any confirmed resolution at the Strait.

Current Middle East Oil Price

Source: OilPrice.com benchmark data — 4 October 2026. Month-on-month changes compare with the 6 September 2026 update. Qatar-specific grades are tracked separately on OGSN’s Qatar oil price page.

Murban is the region’s principal exchange-traded contract, listed on ICE Futures Abu Dhabi as the Gulf’s benchmark for physical and futures pricing.

Middle East Oil Price History

Regional grades normally track Brent closely, though the spread has widened sharply: Dubai now trades $11.46 above Brent, against $2.44 in early September, and Murban $8.57 above, against $7.02. The table below uses Brent as the reference series pending confirmed monthly history for individual Gulf grades.

What Is Driving Middle East Oil Prices

Supply disruption at the source has not resolved, and Brent is back above $100 a barrel, a level last averaged in May. Iraq, Kuwait, and the UAE implemented production cutbacks earlier in the conflict as tankers could not safely exit the Persian Gulf, and the Strait of Hormuz was still severely restricted in early September, more than six months into the standoff.

As of early September, Washington and Tehran continued to give conflicting accounts of who controls the Strait. US officials claim daily convoys of 30-40 escorted ships moving up to 18 million barrels of oil, with President Trump describing the waterway as under US control after CENTCOM claimed to have cleared its transit lanes of mines.

Independent ship-tracking firms Kpler and Lloyd’s List instead put daily transits at roughly 12-13 vessels, a fraction of the pre-war baseline of around 100 ships a day. Iran maintains it retains control and will only permit pre-approved vessels through designated channels, and has reported tankers disabled by mines on routes it calls illegal; Saudi Arabia has separately accused Iran of an attack that killed two crew aboard one of its tankers.

Pipeline routes that bypass the chokepoint, such as the Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline, remain the main alternative export route for UAE barrels.

OPEC+ has continued raising output rather than waiting for the chokepoint to clear. The group’s 188,000 barrel-per-day increase for September, its sixth consecutive monthly rise, completes the unwind of the voluntary cuts first agreed in 2023, and the group has since agreed to hold October quotas unchanged. The International Energy Agency has flagged the Strait of Hormuz as a route for roughly 20% of global hydrocarbon shipments, making the ongoing disruption there the single largest swing factor still underpinning regional prices.

Middle East Oil Price Storage Economics

The market remains in backwardation, meaning nearby crude still commands a premium over future deliveries. This differs from June, when a genuine reopening of the Strait briefly flipped Dubai and Murban curves into contango; the current climb reflects an actively hazardous standoff, including reported mine strikes and a tanker attack, rather than any easing of risk, so the incentive to hold oil in tanks remains limited.

Fujairah illustrates the effect directly, with stockpiles at the port drawn down sharply over the year as vessels unable to enter the Persian Gulf continue to draw on onshore reserves. OGSN’s dedicated coverage of the Hormuz crisis oil storage impact sets out the wider picture.

Capacity detail for the port sits in OGSN’s Fujairah tank storage hub.

Inside the Gulf, onshore production storage remains filled close to capacity because tankers still cannot safely exit at anything close to pre-war volumes, a dynamic covered in OGSN’s Tank Storage UAE guide to Fujairah and Abu Dhabi capacity.

Middle East Oil Price by Region

Regional benchmarks did not move together this month: Murban, Brent and Dubai rose while WTI eased slightly, leaving Murban $19.71 above WTI. Russian-linked grades tracked on OGSN’s Urals oil price page also moved higher.

Middle East Oil Price in Local Currency

Exchange rates are mid-market rates as at 4 October 2026. Figures rounded to two decimal places. CNY and INR rows reflect the growing share of Middle East crude flowing to Chinese and Indian refiners.

Middle East Oil Price Per Barrel

Middle East Oil Price Outlook

Near-term, prices are likely to stay sensitive to developments at the Strait: a verified reduction in mine risk and tanker attacks would likely reverse this month’s climb and could tip the market back into contango, as briefly happened in June, while further escalation could push prices higher still. OPEC+’s completed unwind of its 2023 voluntary cuts adds a modest offsetting supply cushion regardless of how the standoff develops, though the group has held October quotas unchanged and signalled no further increases from the fourth quarter.

For terminal operators, the storage implication remains tied to the Strait itself rather than the price level alone: as long as Hormuz stays severely restricted and backwardation persists, ullage demand at Gulf hubs will stay muted, while Western terminals with spare capacity remain better positioned to capture any contango-driven storage bookings that would follow a genuine, verified reopening.