One source says ships are now navigating the waterway with their transponders on: File Image/Pixabay 

Oil prices on Tuesday experienced a minuscule dip as officials reported a pause of hostilities in Lebanon – a key consideration in maintaining progress in peace talks between the U.S. and Iran.

As of 1155 GMT, Brent was down 26 cents to $77.64 per barrel, and West Texas Intermediate was down 17 cents to $73.69 per barrel.

In keeping with previous developments, messages were mixed regarding particulars of the peace talks as well as the state of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, which was declared open as part of negotiations between Washington and Tehran.

Tamas Varga, an analyst at PVM Oil Associates, said, “Ship owners and operators will require assurances that the threats posed by mines have been fully eliminated…Damaged ports, debris in the water, and congestion present additional obstacles to an unconditional ramp-up in traffic.”

However, U.S. president Donald Trump said 19 million barrels of oil flowed out of the Strait on Monday.

Similarly, progress in the talks was reported when Iran supposedly agreed to “robust” inspections of their nuclear sites; but the Islamic republic’s foreign ministry on Tuesday said no inspections had been arranged.

Mixed messages abounded regarding the efficacy of the peace negotiations themselves: while both hawks and doves continued to express grave doubts that Iran would adhere to any agreements coming from the talks, Scott Chronert, managing director of U.S. equity strategy at Citi Research, told media, “If you just follow the oil price trading pattern here over the past couple of weeks, you’re seeing the markets telling you that it’s increasingly confident that we’re closer to the end of the conflict.”

Still, one promising development that was reported on Tuesday involved the nature of transit through the Hormuz: prior to the 60-day memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran, most tankers were moving through the waterway with transponders and AIS positioning switched off.

However, according to conventional visible tracking signals monitored by Bloomberg, as many as seven tankers broadcast they were in the Strait on Tuesday morning local time: two outbound non-Iranian supertankers, three outbound tankers carrying fuels, and two Iran-flagged medium-sized Suezmax tankers inbound moving into the Gulf.