On Saturday, Iran's Supreme National Security Council published six conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. On Sunday, Iran replaced the man who published them with a former commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guard.
Mohsen Rezaei is the new secretary of the council. He led the Guard from 1981 to 1997. And four days ago, on the day Iran announced it had agreed shipping coordinates with Oman, he said Iran would under no circumstances allow any route through the strait other than Iran's own.
We reported that remark on Thursday and noted we could not tell whether he spoke for the file. That question is now answered. He runs it.
Brent traded near $84.25 a barrel on Monday morning, up about 0.8%, with WTI near $78.75, up about 0.7%. The market has taken back roughly a tenth of last week's fall.
The Appointment
Rezaei, 71, was named secretary of the Supreme National Security Council by presidential decree. Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei issued a concurrent decree making him his personal representative on the same council, so Rezaei holds both positions at once.
Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, who announced Saturday's six conditions and said the council would not retreat from them whether in war or in negotiations, moves to a political advisory role.
This post has now turned over twice in five months. Ali Larijani held it until he was killed in a strike in March. Zolghadr held it from March until Sunday. Iranian state media, Al Jazeera and UPI carried the decree, though they disagree on whether it was issued Sunday or Monday, so we are dating it to Sunday and attributing it.
Rezaei's public position on the waterway is on the record and it is not ambiguous. In July he said control of Hormuz is worth more than dozens of atomic bombs. He has said the United States would face serious risks and casualties if the blockade continues.
Set that beside what the council he now runs is demanding: an end to military action against Iran and its allies, withdrawal of the American naval forces enforcing the blockade, war reparations, sanctions relief, the release of frozen assets, and an end to threats against Iran's leader.
Nobody in Tehran has walked any of that back. Araghchi reaffirmed it on Sunday, Baghaei on Monday, and deputy parliament speaker Ali Nikzad on Monday. The conditions were not an opening bid that a new secretary might soften. They are the position, and the man who now owns them spent sixteen years running the Revolutionary Guard.
Iran Has Not Answered the UAE for Two Days
On Saturday a missile hit a vessel belonging to Abu Dhabi's national oil company about 18 nautical miles east of Khasab. The United Arab Emirates blamed the Revolutionary Guard directly and called it piracy.
Iran has said nothing about it. No denial, no claim, no dismissal. More than 48 hours have passed.
That is out of character and it is the reason we are giving it its own section. When tankers were attributed to Iran in 2019 and again in 2021, Tehran denied it within hours. This time there is nothing.
The closest thing to a response came from President Masoud Pezeshkian at a Saturday press conference, where he said the United States had breached the Hormuz clause of the memorandum and that Iran had responded in turn. That is a general statement about American violations, made at a podium, not a reply to the Emirates. Some coverage is reading it as a tacit admission. We are not, because it is an inference and the words do not carry it.
The vessel has still not been named, by ADNOC, by the UK Maritime Trade Operations or by anyone else. ADNOC's own tally is 15 vessels struck since the war began, with one crew member killed and 20 injured. One outlet counts Saturday's as the sixteenth. We cannot reconcile those and are giving you the company's own figure.
The Bill Advanced
Iran's parliamentary committee on national security approved the framework of a bill that would bar American, Israeli and other hostile vessels from the strait, ban the carriage of Israel-affiliated cargo on penalty of fines up to 20% of cargo value, and deny transit to states held responsible for damage to Iran until they pay compensation.
Last Thursday this was a draft under expert review. On Sunday it cleared committee.
Two cautions. Committee approval is not passage: the full parliament and the Guardian Council both stand between this and law. And the reporting is Iranian state media, whose page bodies we could not open, so we are describing what two state-derived outlets reported rather than what we have read in the text.
It still matters, because it is moving in the opposite direction from the corridor being drafted in Muscat, and it is moving through an institution rather than through a spokesman.
The Khamenei Meeting Was Not an Appearance
Iranian state media disclosed on Sunday that Pezeshkian had met Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. Several outlets ran it as the Supreme Leader resurfacing after five months.
Read the detail. The meeting took place in late July. It was disclosed on August 9. There is no footage and no photograph. Khamenei has still not been seen in public since he succeeded his father in March, and he was reportedly seriously injured in the February attack.
A headline claiming he appeared in public after five months is wrong, and it is circulating.
The timing is worth holding onto for another reason. Pezeshkian said on July 21 that contact with Khamenei was increasing day by day. In early August he said communication was very difficult. The meeting now disclosed sits between those two statements, and a Basij official said Sunday that footage of Khamenei would be released in future. Nothing has been.
He has still neither approved nor rejected the Oman agreement.
The Blockade Tightened Again, and a Refinery Burned
Central Command's count of commercial vessels redirected under the blockade reached 55 on Sunday, from 53 on Saturday and 44 a week ago. It says more than 20 American warships are now deployed to the region.
On Sunday a Houthi drone struck Saudi Aramco's Jazan refinery. The Saudi energy ministry confirmed a fire that was extinguished with no injuries, and pointedly did not give a cause. The Houthi spokesman claimed it.
One number you will see attached to this is 400,000 barrels a day, the refinery's capacity. Do not treat it as lost supply. Jazan shut in late July. The plant was not running when it was hit, and a capacity figure is a property of the facility rather than a measurement of anything that happened to it. That distinction is the fourth item on our reference page on oil data traps.
Houthi forces also struck the Yemeni port of Mocha twice within 24 hours on Sunday, killing seven and wounding thirty according to the Yemeni military.
Trump Says He Is Low-Keying It
The president gave Axios a phone interview published Sunday. The United States is low-keying it, he said. It is only semi-negotiating with Iran. It is watching Iran's inflation and the fact that it has no money, and Iran cannot pay its soldiers. He called it a chess game.
Baghaei answered that on Monday: Iranians, he said, have shown they are professional chess players. He repeated that as long as the American naval blockade continues, the conditions for reopening will not exist.
That is the whole negotiation in two lines. One side is describing a waiting game against an economy. The other is describing a blockade that has to lift first.
Statements from Rubio and Bessent are circulating that read as current and are not. Rubio saying progress was made and he hoped something would happen very shortly, and Bessent saying a deal could land by Wednesday, are both from Tuesday August 4. Vance's remarks about being in the middle of the game are from Saturday. There is no new statement from any of the three.
A Note on the Weekly Number, Again
Reuters reported that both benchmarks fell more than 7% last week. We said about 5%. The difference is the same one we wrote about on Friday.
Brent October settled at $83.55 on Friday. Measured against October's July 31 settle of $87.93, that is a fall of 4.98%. Measured against $90.12, which is where the September contract expired on July 31, it is 7.3%. The second comparison sets the current contract against a different, expired one.
We flagged this on Friday after making the same mistake ourselves twice. It is still being published. We are staying with about 5%, and the arithmetic is above so you can check which one you think is right.
What to Watch
Rezaei has not yet spoken as secretary of the security council. His first statement in the role is the single most informative thing likely to happen this week.
The Energy Information Administration publishes its Short-Term Energy Outlook on Tuesday. Its standing July forecast has Brent averaging $82 across 2026, against a spot price now above $84.
Saudi Aramco's September allocations are due between now and Thursday. Because Aramco asked buyers to nominate both from Ras Tanura inside the strait and from Yanbu or Sidi Kerir outside it, the allocation notice will show the split. Only Arab Light is available at the alternates, which is why the company cut its light grades for September and raised medium and heavy.
And whether Iran ever answers the Emirates. A government has now named the Revolutionary Guard as the author of an attack on a Gulf state's oil shipping. The Guard's former commander has just been put in charge of the file. Silence is a choice, and it is the second day of it.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Oil market conditions can change rapidly. Consult a qualified financial professional before making investment decisions.