Meanwhile, the IEA is reduced to citing mass transit as a buffer against oil price shock: File Image/Pixabay

With one analyst calling it “more of a tactical breather” than a trend change, oil prices on Friday pulled back from the previous session’s spike, as the U.S. scrambled to compensate for Iran’s continued blockage of the Strait of Hormuz.

Brent retreated toward the $109 level per barrel and West Texas Intermediate hovered in the high $90s, as Washington provided sanctions relief on stranded Iranian cargoes (which could help replenish Asian markets over the next few days), moved forward with Strategic Petroleum Reserve releases, and continued its attempt to create a coalition of other countries to secure shipping lanes in the Hormuz.

Julianne Geiger, researcher for Oilprice.com, remarked that all of this led to a breather in Friday’s trading, but “The market isn’t buying the idea that this gets resolved quickly…physical damage across the region—from refinery hits to LNG outages—has already taken real capacity offline, and the timeline to fix it is now being measured in months for some and years for others, certainly not weeks.”

Geiger added that the WTI-Brent spread “blowing out to its widest in over a decade is another signal that something deeper is off.”

Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency on Friday published a “menu” of 10 options “to shelter consumers from the impacts of this crisis,” including greater use of public transport, reducing highway speeds by at least 10 kilometers (6 miles) an hour, and diverting liquefied petroleum gas from use in transport to cooking.

As for the war itself, stocks on Friday tumbled after Iran and Israel exchanged overnight strikes, and several news agencies reported that the Pentagon is sending thousands of additional Marines to the Middle East, with “heavy preparations” being made for sending ground troops to Iran.

Baird investment strategist Ross Mayfield told media, “If this is an escalation involving troops on the ground, then we’re probably in for at least a couple more weeks of this sort of market of higher oil prices, high gas prices; you’re hanging on every headline about energy infrastructure in the region.

“Quite frankly, equity markets haven’t sold off in a way that would reflect this sort of event yet, so there could still be some downside ahead.”