Oil prices rose on Thursday, snapping a three-session losing streak, after a report from the Wall Street Journal said the Trump administration has repeatedly told mediators it has no interest in reviving the terms of the memorandum of understanding it reached with Iran back in June.

Brent, the global crude benchmark, settled up roughly 2%, close to $90 a barrel, while US benchmark West Texas Intermediate finished up around 1.5%, near $84. In later trade, both contracts pushed to session highs, with WTI briefly touching around $84 and Brent near $89, as the rhetoric between Washington and Tehran hardened rather than eased.

Traders scaled back bets on an imminent diplomatic breakthrough that would ease flows out of the Gulf, with the market instead pricing in a longer stretch of restricted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz rather than a near-term resolution. Fresh Iranian threats toward vessels breaching its new transit rules, and warnings of retaliation against US-linked shipping and energy interests, added a further layer of risk premium. That premium matters beyond futures markets: Brent and WTI serve as the reference prices for much of the world's physically traded crude, so risk reflected in the benchmarks feeds through to what refiners and importing countries pay for oil.

White House rules out renewed talks

The White House confirmed that no active negotiations with Iran are underway. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that the US has no interest in speaking with or meeting Iranian counterparts, framing the current approach as one of economic punishment rather than renewed diplomacy, and reiterating that "all options remain on the table."

The stance followed Monday's rollout of what Washington described as the toughest sanctions in its history against Iran, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggesting the measures could reduce the need for further military action.

Iran threatens retaliation

Iran's response has been defiant on two fronts. A senior parliamentary security figure dismissed the sanctions as an "inhumane and hostile act" that had already lost their bite, while Iran's top security official warned that Tehran would deliver proportionate retaliation against US military and economic interests — including shipping, energy, insurance and financial assets — if Washington escalated further during the ongoing mediation push.

Tehran also signalled that vessels breaching its newly imposed Hormuz transit rules could face blacklisting.

Diplomatic efforts continue on the margins

The rally came despite a flurry of diplomatic activity earlier in the week aimed at restarting talks. Qatar's prime minister travelled to Tehran on Thursday in an attempt to relaunch negotiations to end the US-Israeli war with Iran, arriving on the eve of the conflict's six-month anniversary. Doha is one of the few Gulf capitals that keeps open channels with both Washington and Tehran, a position that has repeatedly placed it in the mediator's seat. The market reaction, however, suggests participants see limited near-term prospect of a deal.

Hormuz traffic edges up; Al-Zour restarts

Analysts pointed to the lack of visible diplomatic progress as the real catalyst for the price move. UBS's Giovanni Staunovo noted that continued restricted flows combined with stalled talks were prompting the market to reassess its assumptions.

The Strait of Hormuz — the chokepoint between Iran and Oman that carried around a fifth of global daily oil and LNG supply before the conflict — saw a modest improvement in traffic, with roughly 10 vessels transiting on Wednesday against a 10-day average closer to 15. The daily counts are tracked closely because most of that volume has no practical alternative route to market: overland bypasses such as Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline and the UAE's Fujairah link can carry only a fraction of what normally moves through the strait, and LNG has no bypass at all.

Elsewhere, Kuwait's state oil refiner confirmed that its Al-Zour refinery, which was struck by Iranian drones in May, has now restarted all three crude units at about 60% of capacity. Al-Zour is Kuwait's largest refinery, with capacity of about 615,000 barrels a day.

Prolonged uncertainty in view

With Iran's nuclear programme still unresolved and Tehran retaining clear leverage over Hormuz, the risk of prolonged uncertainty hanging over the oil market looks set to persist, particularly as separate tensions between Russia and the West over Ukraine add another layer of geopolitical unease to the backdrop. For now, the signposts traders can actually observe are the ones already in the data: daily tanker counts through the strait, the pace of Al-Zour's climb back toward full capacity, and whether Qatar's mediation effort produces any movement in either side's stated position.