20th August 2026
There was a time when seeing the price of a barrel of oil approach $100 would have been enough to make markets sit up.
Now it is becoming an increasingly realistic prospect.
Brent crude has pushed above $92 a barrel this week and, according to the latest market data, has risen for five consecutive trading sessions. Reuters put Brent at $91.97 on Thursday morning, its highest level since late July. Oilprice.com states $92.20.
The question is no longer whether oil can reach $100.
The question is what would make it stop before it gets there?
There are certainly arguments for a slowdown. US crude inventories unexpectedly increased by 4.4 million barrels last week, suggesting that physical supplies are not yet collapsing.
But the oil market is not waiting for the world to run out of oil.
It is pricing the possibility that supplies could become increasingly difficult to move.
And that brings us back to the Strait of Hormuz.
The Strait is one of the most important energy chokepoints on the planet.
Normally, roughly one-fifth of the world's oil consumption passes through it. Today, that traffic is still severely disrupted.
Reuters reports that only a small number of commodity vessels are currently transiting the Strait, with shipping activity remaining well below pre-conflict levels.
That is the fundamental reason the oil price has been climbing again. It doesn't require every tanker to be stopped. It only requires traders to believe that the disruption could continue.
Oil markets work on expectations. If a trader believes that supplies will be tighter next month, the price can rise today.
That is why $100 suddenly doesn't look so far away. $100 is only 9% away and at at $92, Brent needs to rise by less than 9% to reach $100.
In an ordinary market that might seem a substantial move.
In a market being driven by geopolitical uncertainty, it can happen remarkably quickly.
Indeed, Brent has already risen substantially from the levels seen earlier in the summer. Current prices are also more than 35% above the level of a year ago.
The psychological significance of $100 should not be underestimated either.
Once Brent gets into the high $90s, traders will begin asking whether it can break through the psychologically important three-figure barrier.
That can itself become part of the momentum.
But $100 is not inevitable and this is where the story needs some caution. There are still ways the oil price could turn around.
The most obvious would be a genuine breakthrough in negotiations and a substantial restoration of normal shipping through Hormuz.
If tankers begin moving freely again, the risk premium built into the oil price could disappear surprisingly quickly.
There is also the possibility of weaker demand.
High oil prices eventually have a habit of producing their own cure.
When petrol becomes expensive, people drive less.
When diesel becomes expensive, transport costs rise and businesses look for alternatives.
When aviation fuel becomes expensive, airlines face higher costs.
And when energy becomes expensive across the economy, consumers have less money available for everything else.
That is what economists call demand destruction.
The danger is that we could therefore get a situation where oil initially rises because of supply fears and then eventually falls because the high price itself damages demand.
Scotland has a particular vulnerability and this is where the current oil story becomes much more than an international markets article.
Scotland is particularly exposed to energy and transport costs. We have large rural areas where people have to drive considerable distances.
We have fishing fleets that consume substantial quantities of diesel and we have agricultural businesses heavily dependent on fuel.
We have remote communities where transporting goods is more expensive and we have thousands of households that are not connected to the gas network and rely on heating oil or other forms of energy.
A rise in crude oil therefore doesn't remain somewhere on a financial-market screen.
It eventually finds its way into household budgets.
The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit has estimated that Scotland faces around £25 million of additional costs every week that the Middle East disruption continues, through higher energy and fuel costs.
That gives some idea of the scale of what is at stake.
For rural Scotland, there is another particularly uncomfortable connection. Heating oil is a refined petroleum product, so its price is influenced by the underlying crude oil market as well as refining costs, supply and distribution. Recent UK heating-oil prices have already been rising sharply. That creates a difficult situation for households in places such as Caithness.
The people most exposed are not necessarily those driving the biggest cars. They can be families living in homes that simply have no gas connection and have limited alternatives for heating.
If crude oil moves towards $100 and remains there, the consequences will eventually work through the supply chain.
And that means the oil price that appears on a financial website in dollars can eventually become a much more familiar number on a heating-oil quotation in pounds per litre.
It won't stop at the petrol pump and this is perhaps the most important thing for consumers to understand.
When oil rises, people naturally look at the petrol and diesel price.
But fuel is only the beginning. Almost everything that moves around Scotland requires energy.
Food travels from farms and factories to distribution centres and then to shops.
Tourist attractions depend upon visitors being able to travel. Hotels and restaurants have to receive deliveries. The effect therefore spreads through the economy.
Even businesses that use relatively little oil themselves can face higher costs from suppliers.
And eventually someone has to decide whether those costs are absorbed or passed on.
This is where inflation could become awkward again
Scotland, like the rest of Britain, has spent the past couple of years trying to get inflation under control.
A fresh oil shock could make that considerably more difficult. Fuel is a visible cost, but it is the second-round effects that can become more troublesome.
A haulage company facing higher diesel costs may increase its charges. A food distributor pays more to move products.
A builder pays more for transporting materials.
A farmer faces higher fuel costs. A business then passes some of those increases to its customers.
That is how a rise in the price of a barrel of crude can eventually become a rise in the price of something sitting on a Scottish supermarket shelf.
The Scottish Government's latest economic bulletin has already been watching business pricing intentions closely, with firms continuing to face cost pressures even as the proportion expecting to raise prices has recently eased.
Another oil shock would put pressure back in the wrong direction.
The difference this time is the starting point
There is an important reason why this oil shock could potentially be more damaging than a previous spike.
The economy is not starting from a position of complete comfort.
Households have already experienced several years of higher prices.
Mortgage and housing costs have been painful for many families.
Food prices remain much higher than they were before the recent inflation shock.
Energy bills have been a continuing concern.
Businesses have been dealing with higher wages, borrowing costs and other expenses.
In other words, there is less spare room in household and business budgets than there was before the cost-of-living crisis began.
Another significant increase in energy costs therefore doesn't arrive in isolation.
It lands on top of everything that has already happened.
And Scotland cannot simply switch the problem off
There is an irony here.
Scotland is one of Europe's major energy-producing regions.
It has offshore oil and gas.
It has enormous wind resources.
It has expanding renewable electricity generation.
Yet Scottish households and businesses remain exposed to international energy prices.
That is because energy markets are interconnected.
Producing energy in Scotland does not automatically mean that every Scottish household buys that energy cheaply.
The same global markets that create opportunities for energy producers can create problems for consumers. That contradiction is likely to become increasingly important as the transition to a lower-carbon economy continues.
What happens if Brent reaches $100? The immediate answer is: not as much as some headlines might suggest. A barrel reaching $100 doesn't mean petrol instantly jumps by a corresponding percentage.
There are taxes, refining costs, distribution costs and exchange rates involved.
The pound-dollar exchange rate also matters because crude oil is priced internationally in dollars.
But if Brent reached $100 and stayed there for weeks or months, the effects would become increasingly difficult to avoid.
Petrol and diesel would come under pressure.
Heating oil would be affected.
Transport costs would rise.
Businesses would face higher operating costs.
Food and other goods could become more expensive.
And households would have less money left for discretionary spending.
That final point matters enormously for Scotland's small businesses.
A family spending an extra £500 a year keeping the car running and the house warm has £500 less to spend elsewhere.
The oil shock therefore doesn't just hurt the energy sector.
It can take money out of the pockets of customers across the economy.
The strange thing about the current oil market
There is an important paradox developing.
The physical oil supply system has not collapsed.
Oil is still moving through Hormuz.
Alternative export routes are being used.
The United States is trying to facilitate the movement of tankers.
Gulf producers are finding ways of getting some cargoes to market.
But the volume and reliability of those movements remain uncertain. The Financial Times reports that demand for tankers has surged as Gulf producers search for ways around the disruption, with shipping costs and risks rising sharply.
That means the market is paying increasingly high prices not simply for oil, but for the ability to move oil safely.
And that is an important distinction.
So will we see $100? Nobody can know.
If negotiations suddenly succeed and shipping through Hormuz returns to something approaching normal, Brent could retreat sharply.
If the present stalemate continues, however, $100 becomes increasingly plausible.
And another serious attack on shipping or further restriction of the Strait could make the journey from $92 to $100 much quicker than anyone would like.
That is why the next few weeks matter.
The oil market is effectively waiting for one of two things.
More oil moving through Hormuz — or more reasons why it cannot.
At the moment, the second story is winning.
And for Scotland, the concern is not really whether a financial-market benchmark reaches a particular number.
The real concern is what happens if it stays there.
Because Scotland can survive a brief oil-price spike.
What is much harder to absorb is another prolonged period of expensive energy arriving just as households and businesses are beginning to believe that the worst of the cost-of-living crisis is finally behind them.
Brent at $100 would therefore be more than another headline about oil.
It could be another squeeze on the Scottish economy.