Oil prices posted modest gains on Friday, in a virtual repeat of the trading patterns and motivations of the previous session, as political pundits looked ahead to Monday to gauge the reaction when U.S. President Donald Trump makes good on his vow to begin isolating Iran's economy. Washington's isolation campaigns against Tehran have historically worked through secondary sanctions, which threaten foreign banks, shippers and refiners with losing access to the U.S. financial system if they keep doing business with Iran.

Friday also saw Iran blink for the first time in the standoff between Tehran and Washington. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian called for an end to the war between the two countries, acknowledged the financial toll it has taken, and appeared to criticize his country's hardliners as "sitting outside the circle."

Brent, the global crude benchmark, settled up 61 cents at $94.39 per barrel, and West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, settled up 23 cents at $87.06 per barrel. For the week, Brent gained 6.3 percent while WTI rose 5.6 percent.

Analysts See Iran on the Ropes

An emerging loose consensus among analysts was that Iran seemed to be on the ropes. John Kilduff, founding partner at Again Capital, said, "Sanctions have been the only thing to bring Iran to heel."

While Iran continued to threaten a "devastating" response to U.S. hostilities, Crispus Nyaga, research analyst at Empire FX, remarked, "The immediate impact on supply may be limited as Iranian exports are already heavily constrained by the U.S. naval blockade."

The Strait of Hormuz — the narrow chokepoint between Iran and Oman that in normal times carries roughly a fifth of the oil consumed worldwide — has long topped the list of market fears in any U.S.-Iran confrontation. Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group Inc., suggested that it is no longer front-page news, despite press doves persistently sounding the alarm over continued transit blockages.

"Hormuz is still a problem, but it is no longer the only story," Flynn wrote in a note, adding that "pipelines, shuttles, U.S. shale, a recovering (if bottlenecked) Venezuela, and an unconstrained United Arab Emirates are all adding barrels."

A Note of Skepticism

It fell upon Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, to inject some skepticism into the idea that Washington's strategies against the Islamic republic may finally be paying off. She noted that the country is already one of the most sanctioned countries in the world, and that its leaders appear to believe it can still outlast the United States.

"The Strait of Hormuz is not closed but we still estimate that we're losing from this war about 8 million barrels per day [bpd]," Croft added.

Iran's oil sales have lived under U.S. sanctions of varying severity since the 1979 revolution, and Tehran has repeatedly adapted through discounted cargoes and a shadow fleet of aging tankers — a track record that underpins such doubts about how quickly new pressure can bite.

Still, the U.S. military told media it has helped tankers transport more than 660 million barrels of oil through Hormuz since early May.

Saudi Crude Rerouted Away from Houthi Hunting Grounds

In other oil news on Friday, tanker tracking data showed that Saudi Arabia has boosted its crude oil exports from Egypt's Mediterranean port of Sidi Kerir by about 33 percent in the month since the Houthis threatened Saudi oil shipments in the southern Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb strait. Sidi Kerir is the Mediterranean terminus of the SUMED pipeline, which carries crude across Egypt from the Red Sea, allowing cargoes to bypass the Bab el-Mandeb altogether.

Western ship operators, including South Korea's Sinokor, Norway's DHT Management, and Greece's Dynacom, have been helping Aramco transport crude from the Red Sea in a northern direction.

Sources: Reuters, Fox News, CNBC, Bloomberg, Ship & Bunker