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The route the Kingdom built to escape Hormuz was already narrowing before Friday. Richard Bronze of Energy Aspects told CNN, as carried by Gulf News, that at its peak around 4.5 million barrels a day were being exported from Yanbu after Hormuz was curtailed, that about 3 million of that travelled south through Bab al-Mandab, and that Saudi crude through the southern strait dropped to around 400,000 barrels a day in August because of the Houthi threat and has since fallen further. The balance goes north through Suez, and a cargo for Asia that cannot go south must round Africa: Gulf News puts the added transit at about a month, with fuel, freight, insurance and crew costs on top. Xeneta’s Peter Sand estimates transits through Bab al-Mandab down 60 to 70 percent since the diversions of late 2023 and down a further 46 percent in recent days. Asian refiners, Bronze said, are bidding up cargoes from other regions, which is part of why Brent is above $100.

The Houthi price list is unchanged and now enforceable from both banks of the strait. Saree’s Friday statement repeats the July formula, safe for everyone except Saudi ships; Hazem al-Assad told Al-Araby al-Jadeed that freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab is safe and orderly. The ship counts behind those words, 28 commodity ships through Bab al-Mandab on Wednesday against seven through Hormuz, were recorded in Edition 9 and predate Mayyun; Friday’s count is not established. Whether Dhubab holds, the observable Edition 9 set, is answered by the AFP official’s sentence that everything on the western coast has fallen; no return to Mocha by the National Resistance Forces is recorded. Kpler’s weekly count of Saudi cargoes through the strait and the IRGC’s Chabahar coordinates are not established today.

Iran’s foreign ministry said on Friday that it would meet Gulf states in Oman on Monday to discuss the Strait of Hormuz, that Iraq and other littoral Gulf states would participate, and that the meeting was intended to promote better understanding among the countries of the region and strengthen shared regional security. The Financial Times, as carried by RFE/RL, reported the meeting as an Omani initiative scheduled for September 14 in Salalah, with a number of states confirmed and details still being finalised; Oman and Iran have been negotiating a temporary arrangement under which ships would enter the strait through Iranian waters and mostly exit through Omani territory, Tehran and Muscat hope to use GCC backing to press Washington to lift the blockade of Iranian ports, and Gulf states want any arrangement to be temporary and to let vessels both enter and leave. The FT’s diplomats cautioned that a US-Iran agreement would ultimately be needed for the waterway to reopen; there are no direct US-Iran talks. Brent fell more than three percent on the report.

Prince Faisal bin Farhan’s Friday was spent on the telephone. SPA, as carried by Arab News, records calls with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and with Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on regional tensions and diplomatic efforts; the Turkish call is the first contact with a Mecca pact partner this desk has recorded since the pipeline attack, and any Turkish statement matching Pakistan’s defensive-only reading, the observable Edition 9 set, is not established. No Saudi readout of Thursday’s Araghchi call has appeared, so that observable is resolved in the negative. The BRICS summit opens in New Delhi on Saturday with Putin, Xi and Pezeshkian present; the Kingdom is a member, and who represents it is not established in today’s reporting. Pezeshkian said in Delhi that pressure on Iran has reached a critical and dangerous stage.

Representative Brian Mast, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that will review the agreement during its mandatory oversight period, told Jewish Insider he would likely support it: there are still details being ironed out, he said, but he is pretty supportive, having reviewed the notifications to Congress, been briefed in private and spoken directly to Energy Secretary Chris Wright. President Trump’s letter to Congress, per the same report, says the agreement will permit the transfer of sensitive nuclear technology to support a joint enrichment and conversion study but will not permit the transfer of restricted data, and that it will not constitute an unreasonable risk to the common defense and security; that is consistent with the black box concept, a US-designed, built and operated enrichment facility on Saudi soil. Representative Darrell Issa said Riyadh would not have to manage it but could own it, called the Kingdom an open book on concessions, and framed enrichment on Saudi soil as a matter of national pride rather than an early plan.

The Institute for Science and International Security’s reading, shared Wednesday, is that the deal appears deliberately structured so that the facility can be deployed without automatically transferring the centrifuge technology embodied in it, with the United States retaining control of design, production, assembly, maintenance and physical access, but that it explicitly permits transfers of centrifuge sensitive nuclear technology under certain circumstances, is therefore not a categorical prohibition, does not address whether Saudi Arabia could separately pursue its own enrichment, and would need additional agreements before any facility is built. Democrats have voiced proliferation concerns; other committee Republicans said they had not yet reviewed the text. Any hearing notice and any text of the IAEA safeguards arrangements Edition 9 flagged are not established.

The International Energy Agency said on Friday that Saudi crude supply fell by 2.3 million barrels a day on the month to 6 million in August, the lowest in more than three decades, citing attacks on Saudi energy facilities, and cut its forecast for 2026 global consumption to a decline of 2.5 million barrels a day from the 1.6 million decline it projected in August. The Kingdom’s own report to OPEC, recorded in Edition 9, put August production at 6.238 million; OPEC’s monthly report, per the Wall Street Journal, cut its 2026 demand growth forecast to 380,000 barrels a day from 580,000, and OPEC’s secondary-source estimate of Saudi output, the observable Edition 9 set, is not established in today’s reporting. Brent touched $109.97 on Friday morning after rising more than 6 percent on Thursday, then fell $3.45 to $104.18 by 1132 GMT on the FT’s Salalah report; WTI fell to $99.52 after crossing $100 on Thursday. Both benchmarks remain on course for a weekly gain above 8 percent, and Thursday’s settlements are not established.

The forecasts are moving in one direction. Commerzbank raised its year-end Brent forecast to $85 from $75 and its diesel forecast to $1,200 a ton from $950; Goldman Sachs, per CBS as carried by Iran International, warned that escalating attacks in the Gulf and Red Sea could take Brent above $120. US diesel passed $6 a gallon for the first time, $6.06 per AAA, and UBS’s Giovanni Staunovo said near-term risks remain to the upside with high volatility. Hormuz transits fell to seven on Thursday from 11; the diesel crack and the open-market rial, flagged in Edition 9, are not established. President Trump said on Fox that the war ends right after the November election and that oil will go down as soon as the United States wins it; the Wall Street Journal, per Iran International, reported that Vance, Rubio and other advisers have discussed with him the possibility that Tehran holds out beyond January 2029.

The Cabinet approved the establishment of the Saudi War Risks Insurance Pool for Cargo and Vessels, a public-private mechanism under the supervision of the Insurance Authority that will cover cargo moved by land, sea and air, marine hull, charterers’ liability and protection and indemnity, for exporters, importers, vessel owners and operators, shipping and freight companies and the Saudi insurers that join it. Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan said the pool would directly enhance the technical preparedness of the domestic insurance market and expand its capacity to provide the necessary coverage, and would strengthen the resilience of the national economy amid regional and international crises. Saudi Re said the Insurance Authority had selected it to lead and structure the arrangements, manage the pool’s technical operations and reinsurance, and place coverage through participating insurers. The Authority’s four objectives are capacity, continuity of trade and supply chains, limiting the effects of volatility and higher reinsurance costs, and the Kingdom’s competitiveness as a logistics hub.

The report frames the pool against India’s, launched this year with $1.5 billion of capacity including a $1.4 billion sovereign guarantee, which issued more than 1,600 policies within weeks while war-risk premiums fell 35 to 40 percent from their peaks. Logistics specialist Nashmi Al-Harbi told Asharq Al-Awsat that insurers had tightened conditions for vessels linked to the region and that the pool would extend to activities and companies with Saudi interests, not only Kingdom-based hulls. What the source does not state is the Saudi pool’s capacity, whether the state guarantees it, or when the first policy is written; none of those is established. The Al Rajhi settlement is not established for a fourth day, and any PIF or Savvy statement on the EA merger study, or named financing from the fund’s New York meetings, is not established.

Traders are pricing a 67 percent chance that the Federal Reserve raises rates at next week’s meeting, up from 62 percent before Thursday’s producer-price index, which showed August prices rising in line with expectations on a rebound in energy costs, per CME FedWatch as carried by Reuters; the US consumer price report was due Friday and its print is not established in today’s reporting. JPMorgan analysts now expect eight of nine developed-market central banks to raise rates by year-end, and two European Central Bank policymakers opened the door on Friday to further increases if the war-fuelled rise in energy prices feeds through to other prices. Japan’s Nikkei fell 3.03 percent in early trading to 63,291. Gold rose 0.6 percent to $4,339.46 on the softer oil print but was down nearly 3 percent on the week, and Saxo Bank’s Ole Hansen attributed the bid to hopes for Monday’s GCC-Iran meeting.

The Saudi transmission is mechanical. The riyal is pegged to the dollar, SAMA’s policy rates follow the Fed’s by design of that peg, and a Fed hike next week would arrive in Riyadh the same day, on top of an economy whose oil revenue is now constrained by volume rather than price and whose non-oil sectors, tourism, logistics and construction, are the ones most exposed to a war on two coasts. The Kingdom is thus in the position of a producer whose own supply loss is lifting global inflation, which lifts the dollar rate, which lifts the riyal rate it cannot set. No SAMA statement on the outlook is in today’s reporting; the Yanbu loadings for the second week of September on either tracker are not established.