Iran and the UAE also met face to face Thursday in a show of diplomacy: File Image/Pixabay

U.S. president Donald Trump took oil investors on an especially wild ride on Thursday, causing them early in the session to propel the commodity upwards as he resumed bombing Iran and then prompting a dramatic price reverse as he suspended hostilities and stated that the time and place for the signing of a peace agreement will “be announced shortly.”

West Texas Intermediate fell 3.2 percent to $87.19 after erasing earlier gains, while Brent fell 3.5 percent to $89.89 per barrel.

Trump stated on his social media network that “discussions and final points have been, in both concept and great detail, approved by all parties involved.”

Earlier on Thursday, the United Arab Emirates and Iran met for the first time since the start of the U.S./Iran war, with the dialogue between the two rivals seen as an effort among Gulf states to end the conflict through diplomacy.

However, Bloomberg noted that the hostilities have taken their toll on global markets despite workarounds that have helped keep oil supplies from depleting: the news agency pointed out that U.S. crude stockpiles are “down by more than 70 million barrels over the last five weeks, a decline of more than 2 million barrels per day: that’s the biggest in data since the 1980s….fuel inventories in Singapore are also at the lowest level since 2013.”

Another outcome of the war is that it prompted China to learn to use less oil: gasoline sales at Sinopec reportedly fell 8 percent year over year in April, while diesel dropped 6 percent, and Goldman Sachs estimated that gasoline and related products consumption may have fallen by as much as 20 percent.

Tellingly, rail travel and subway ridership in China rose in recent months, and EV charging volumes surged to a record high in April, with these shifts coming as “China's refiners are already grappling with weaker economics,” according to Julianne Geiger, market analyst at Oilprice.com.

Also on Thursday, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) lowered  its forecast for world oil demand growth in 2026 to 970,000 bpd, its second straight downward revision, and raised its forecast for 2027 oil demand growth.