Oil has surged 13% this week: why the rally may struggle above $110

Brent crude is approaching $110 a barrel after one of its strongest weeks this year, but oil bulls may soon face a different problem: the rally itself.

The benchmark traded around $108.44 early Friday after touching $109.97, putting it on course for a weekly gain of nearly 13%.

Supply fears remain genuine, with traffic through the Strait of Hormuz constrained and Iran-aligned Houthis seizing Yemen’s port of Mocha.

Yet the higher crude climbs, the harder those prices become to sustain.

Oil has gained 13% and the trade looks stretched

Brent jumped 6.3% on Thursday to settle at $107.63, as fighting across the Persian Gulf and threats to Red Sea shipping added to concerns about physical availability.

OPEC output also fell by about 640,000 barrels a day in August, reinforcing the sense that disrupted barrels are difficult to replace.

But after such a violent move, positioning becomes a risk.

Dennis Kissler of BOK Financial told Barron that futures were in an “overbought condition” with a “corrective phase due”.

Prices can fall even while those risks remain elevated.

After a 13% weekly surge, crude no longer needs a ceasefire to correct, as a pause in escalation or profit-taking could expose how crowded the trade has become.

$110 oil contains the seeds of its own reversal

The strongest resistance to higher crude may eventually come from consumers rather than producers.

The International Energy Agency expects global oil demand to decline by about 1.6 million barrels a day in 2026, with elevated fuel costs and disrupted trade already weighing on consumption.

Naeem Aslam, chief investment officer at Zaye Capital Markets, told Rigzone: “Supply tightness supports prices, but demand destruction can cap the upside if crude remains elevated for too long.”

US diesel prices have reached record highs above $6 a gallon, while refining constraints have lifted diesel margins.

Airlines, hauliers and manufacturers can absorb those costs only for so long before cutting activity, raising prices or passing the burden to customers.

Households then have less money for discretionary spending.

The move from $100 to $110 can be driven by scarcity, but $120 becomes harder because every additional dollar creates a stronger incentive to consume less.

China is becoming a weaker safety net

China remains the world’s biggest crude importer, but its transport system is electrifying rapidly.

Sinopec’s Economics and Development Research Institute estimates electric vehicles will displace about 1.2 million barrels a day of Chinese oil demand in 2026. EV penetration could reach 75% to 80% by 2030.

“It is equivalent to almost 15% of China’s total demand for refined oil products,” institute vice-president Fairy Wang told Reuters.

That shift matters because previous oil rallies could rely on strong Chinese consumption to absorb barrels once prices eased. Electrification is gradually weakening that support.

OPEC added another warning on Thursday, cutting its 2026 global oil-demand growth forecast for a fifth consecutive month to just 380,000 barrels a day.

That matters because a weaker demand outlook leaves less room for prices to absorb another supply shock.

None of this neutralises a major Hormuz disruption overnight.

But the market is balancing extremely bullish near-term supply conditions against a demand base that is becoming more fragile.