Commodities Wrap 17 September: Crude Eases on the Hormuz Workaround as Cocoa Breaks and the VIX Unwinds

By The Edge Research Team

Crude eased for a second session on Thursday, with Brent down 1.07 percent at 104.70 dollars a barrel and WTI down 0.61 percent at 101.81 at our 18:57 GMT post settlement capture, as Saudi Arabia moves additional crude through the Strait of Hormuz to offset the East-West pipeline outage, per CNBC’s report for the session. At the settlements, Brent closed 1.01 dollars lower at 104.82 and WTI shed 52 cents to 101.91, per the same report, both arithmetic checked against Wednesday’s settlements. United States crude is still up nearly 2 percent for the week and more than 18 percent for the month, on the report’s account.

The barrels find another way out of the Gulf

The selling ran on rerouting rather than repair, on our reading. Additional Saudi cargoes are being made available to Asian refiners through ship to ship transfers just outside the strait near Oman’s Sohar port, per the network’s report: shuttle tankers still cross Hormuz and hand the barrels to vessels waiting outside the strait, sparing the receiving ships the passage into the Gulf. The report carries figures from Kpler’s Matt Smith putting Gulf of Oman ship transfers at 2.7 million barrels a day against 1.5 million in August, with Saudi loadings at the Mideast Gulf ports up so far this month, though Smith notes it is hard to say whose barrels those transfers are. The workaround has costs of its own: the Saudis halted crude loadings at Yanbu on the Red Sea earlier this week and cancelled some shipments to European customers, per industry sources the report cites, and Rapidan Energy expects Saudi exports to fall by 400,000 barrels a day this month, with lower Yanbu shipments partly offset by higher flows through Hormuz and the risk skewed toward a larger disruption if the pipeline outage extends past September, per a Thursday client note it quotes. On the board, the products split around the crudes: gasoline added 0.54 percent while diesel gave back 2.74 percent, the energy table’s weakest row, and natural gas barely moved.

The decision premium drains from the fourth table

A day after the Federal Reserve’s quarter point rise, the fourth table unwound its event risk, on our reading. The VIX fell 12.03 percent to 15.58, an intraday level with the United States cash session still open, giving back Wednesday’s decision day rise and more, while ether rose 2.10 percent and bitcoin 0.97, and the dollar index sat unchanged at 100.253 with the euro 0.09 percent higher and sterling 0.23 percent lower on the day the Bank of England held, which our Europe wrap covers. The metals told the same risk appetite: copper led the board at 1.76 percent higher with silver up 1.47 percent, gold barely moved at 0.07 percent, and palladium fell 1.13 percent. The softs broke lower, cocoa down 6.00 percent, the largest move on the three commodity boards in either direction, with sugar down 3.01 percent and cotton 2.50 percent, and the grains eased by less than 1 percent apiece.

Energy

Levels captured after the settlement window at 18:57 GMT on Thursday 17 September 2026, ranked by change, measured against Wednesday’s settlements as carried in the price feed; post settlement snapshots, not the official settlements. Contract months as displayed at capture.

Metals

Levels captured after the settlement window at 18:57 GMT on Thursday 17 September 2026, ranked by change, measured against Wednesday’s settlements as carried in the price feed; post settlement snapshots, not the official settlements. Contract months as displayed at capture.

Agriculture

Levels captured after the settlement window at 18:57 GMT on Thursday 17 September 2026, ranked by change, measured against Wednesday’s settlements as carried in the price feed; post settlement snapshots, not the official settlements. Contract months as displayed at capture. Coffee (Dec’26, 276.75 cents a pound, down 1.70 percent) and cotton (Dec’26, 82.25 cents a pound, down 2.50 percent) are omitted to keep the table lean.

Rates, currencies, volatility and crypto

Intraday quotes from the same 18:57 GMT capture on Thursday 17 September 2026, ranked by change, measured against Wednesday’s reference levels as carried in the price feed; snapshot levels of continuously traded instruments, not settlements, captured with the United States cash session still open, so the VIX row is an intraday level rather than a closing print. The US Dollar Index (100.253, unchanged on the feed’s daily figure) is omitted to keep the table lean.

Why it matters: the market is pricing the workaround, not the wound, on our reading: with barrels still crossing Hormuz on shuttles and no damage assessment from Riyadh carried in the report, the crudes have now given back two sessions while diesel, the day’s weakest energy row, is falling faster than the crude legs, and a 12 percent VIX unwind a day after the decision says the fourth table had been carrying event risk more than supply risk. Across everything we published today, the EGX 30 is the day’s best index at 1.23 percent higher and the Hang Seng the worst, 0.44 percent lower.

Outlook: Our United States wrap tonight carries the reaction session, with this board’s gold, silver, Brent and WTI rows carried on tonight’s snapshot basis; the weekly United States inventory data was covered in a separate article today; and the crude story stays hostage to a repair timeline the reporting does not carry, with Rapidan’s note flagging the risk of a longer outage.

Sources: CNBC, The Edge.

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