Oil in June 2026: The Hormuz MOU, a 43-Year-Low Reserve, and What the COT Data Shows

This is a descriptive market analysis. It is not investment advice and not a recommendation. It lays out the publicly reported situation in the oil market as of mid-June 2026 and what the CFTC Commitment of Traders (COT) data showed in the most recent report. Nothing here tells you what to do with a position. All figures are sourced from the CFTC and public reporting and were current as of the dates stated. A fast-moving geopolitical situation can change them quickly.

Introduction

The oil market in June 2026 is a study in crosscurrents. A geopolitical shock that pulled roughly a fifth of the world's seaborne petroleum off the market for three and a half months is now being unwound by a signed agreement. Prices that spiked above $90 have given much of that back in days. America's emergency oil stockpile has fallen to its lowest level since the Reagan administration, with the President publicly warning that reserves could have run dry within weeks. Commercial inventories have drawn down for seven consecutive weeks. And underneath all of it sits a Commitment of Traders snapshot taken at the height of the crisis, days before the news that moved the market hardest.

This piece walks through each layer: the Hormuz MOU, the price tape, the reserve crisis, inventories, and OPEC+. Then it turns to the part most commentary leaves out, which is what speculative and hedger positioning actually looked like, in numbers, in the latest COT report. The goal is to describe what the data shows, not to forecast or advise.

The geopolitical backdrop: a signed Hormuz MOU

The dominant fact of the 2026 oil market is the Strait of Hormuz. Following the outbreak of conflict on February 28, 2026, shipping through the strait was largely paralyzed for more than three months. Traffic that normally runs around 100 cargo-carrying vessels a day collapsed to a handful. By widely cited estimates, the closure removed on the order of 20% of global petroleum exports from the seaborne market. The strait matters disproportionately because of where its oil goes. In recent years roughly 84% of the crude and condensate moving through Hormuz was bound for Asia, and China alone sourced about a third of its imported oil through the chokepoint.

That standoff has now produced a deal. The United States and Iran reached a 14-point memorandum of understanding, which President Trump physically signed at the Palace of Versailles on June 17, 2026 (French President Macron, who hosted, released video of the signing). With both sides' signatures completed, the agreement is in effect. A delegation meeting led by Vice President Vance and Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf is set for Geneva, Switzerland, to begin the next round of negotiations, focused on Iran's nuclear program, rather than a further signing ceremony. The key terms as publicly reported:

• Iran allows safe passage of commercial vessels with no transit charge for 60 days, after which the future administration of the strait is to be negotiated with Oman as mediator.
• The US agrees to terminate sanctions, release frozen Iranian funds and assets, and begin removing its naval blockade of Iran's ports.
• Iran reaffirms that it will not procure or develop nuclear weapons, with the handling of its enriched-material stockpile left to a mutually agreed mechanism.
• The agreement triggers a 60-day window to negotiate a final, UN-endorsed deal.

A reopening is a process, not a switch. Shipments are broadly expected to resume through the third quarter and ramp over several months as mines are cleared and traffic rebuilds. The agreement also left major issues to later technical talks, so the situation remained fluid as of this writing.

The price tape

Prices have done what prices do around binary geopolitical risk. They gap one way on fear and gap back on relief. Brent traded above $90 per barrel during the closure as the risk premium peaked. As the deal came together, crude fell sharply, on the order of 11% in the immediate aftermath of the announcement, and kept sliding. Brent printed around $84.62 on June 15 and slid toward three-month lows near $79 by June 17 after four straight down sessions.

For reference, the COT snapshot we discuss below is dated June 9, 2026, when WTI settled around $84.88 and Brent around $87.33. That is still inside the elevated, pre-MOU regime, and the timing gap matters, so we return to it.

Forecasts, as always, diverge violently. One agency outlook modeled Brent averaging near $105 in June and July, on the assumption the strait stayed closed. Sell-side desks have published numbers as low as the $60s for 2026 on soft underlying supply-demand. The spread between those views is itself information. It tells you how much of the price was geopolitics versus fundamentals.

A Strategic Petroleum Reserve at a 43-year low

The least-discussed pressure point is the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). To blunt the price spike during the blockade, the administration drew the SPR down hard, by roughly 66 to 75 million barrels since late February, at a pace near 9 million barrels a week. That pushed the reserve to about 349 million barrels as of June 5 and to roughly 340 million barrels by mid-June, its lowest level since 1983 and below the prior modern low set in 2023. For scale, the SPR peaked at 726.6 million barrels in December 2009, so the current level is around 48% of that high.

This is where the President's widely quoted remark fits. At the G7 summit, discussing the Iran MOU, Trump said the US would "run out of reserves at about four weeks" had the strait not been reopened. Reporting noted it was not entirely clear whether he meant US or global inventories, and the literal arithmetic is worth stating plainly for accuracy. At roughly 9 million barrels a week from about 340 million, the SPR would not hit zero in four weeks. Analysts more commonly frame the constraint as a "minimum operating level" near 240 million barrels, below which the reserve's cavern hydraulics and drawdown-rate capacity degrade, and the American Petroleum Institute's Mike Sommers has noted the SPR needs to stay above roughly 20% full to remain operational. In other words, the binding limit is functional capacity, not an empty tank, and the reopening relieves the pressure to keep draining it. We present the claim and the figures. We draw no conclusion from them.

Commercial inventory levels

The SPR is separate from commercial crude stocks, and those tightened materially too. US commercial crude inventories fell by about 7.2 million barrels in the week ending June 5, 2026, the seventh consecutive weekly draw, leaving stocks near 441.7 million barrels, roughly 2% below the five-year seasonal average. The prior week's draw was even larger, about 8.0 million barrels, the biggest since February.

Seven straight draws is the fingerprint of the disruption. With a major export route choked, barrels that would have arrived didn't, and domestic stocks did the absorbing. Inventories are the bridge between the geopolitical story and the price story. They are where a supply shock actually shows up in the data before it shows up in anyone's forecast.

OPEC+ and the supply backdrop

On the supply side, OPEC+ responded with a series of modest quota increases. The most recent was a roughly 188,000 barrel-per-day addition for June, described as largely symbolic and the fourth such step since the strait's closure. A quota change is a change to a target, not a guaranteed injection of physical barrels, and that distinction matters when reading supply headlines. Adding to the structural noise, the UAE, a top producer, announced its withdrawal from OPEC and OPEC+, a notable change to the group's composition.

What the COT data shows

Here is the part the headlines tend to leave out. The Commitment of Traders report breaks the futures market into who is holding what. For crude oil in the CFTC's disaggregated report, the categories that matter are Managed Money (the speculative crowd, meaning hedge funds and CTAs), Producer/Merchant (physical hedgers), and Swap Dealers. If you want the full primer, see how to read the COT report and the crude-oil-specific guide.

The figures below are the Futures + Options Combined report, which is the view COTInsight publishes by default, from the CFTC report dated June 9, 2026 (released June 13), as scored by COTInsight.

NYMEX WTI

• Managed Money net position: about +123,200 contracts net long.
• z-score: +0.83. Positioning was modestly above its own 52-week average (about +71,700 contracts) but well short of an extreme. COTInsight flags extremes near plus or minus 2.0. See what the z-score means.
• COT Index (3-year percentile): about 45. Squarely mid-range, not stretched.
• Trend: specs were actually trimming slightly, down about 1,000 contracts on the week and roughly 6,400 over four weeks, a one-week reducing streak.
• Open interest: around 2.75 million contracts (combined) and contracting versus four weeks earlier.
• The hedging complex: Producer/Merchant was net long (about +379,000) while Swap Dealers were heavily net short. That is the usual physical-versus-swap structure, which nets to a commercial short against the speculative long. See the crude guide for why producers can look "long" in one bucket.
• COTInsight's computed contrarian bias label here was Neutral, with no divergence flag on this contract.

The single most important read: even with Brent above $90 and a major supply route shut, Managed Money in WTI was only moderately net long, not crowded, and was easing off rather than piling in. A z-score under +1 and a mid-range COT Index say the speculative book was not stretched at the top of the move.

A tale of two WTI contracts

The same WTI exposure trades in more than one venue, and the two did not agree. On the ICE WTI (Europe) contract, Managed Money was actually net short, about minus 19,800 contracts. Yet its z-score read +0.96, because positioning is measured relative to each contract's own history, and that book had been even more short on average over the prior year. Its COT Index sat around the 82nd percentile, and it carried a bullish-divergence flag. The takeaway is not which number is "right." It is that absolute net positioning and history-relative positioning can point in different directions, and reading one without the other is how people get the COT report wrong.

Brent and the products

• Brent (NYMEX Last Day): Managed Money roughly +9,300 net long, z-score about minus 0.44, COT Index near 55, essentially middle of the road in a "flip zone." Price around $87.33 on the report date.
• RBOB gasoline: specs about +64,300 net long, z-score near +0.37, COT Index around 62. Pump-relevant, and not at an extreme.
• ULSD (diesel and heating oil): specs about +9,600 net long but with a z-score near minus 0.94 and a "building short" regime. This is the one corner of the complex leaning the other way relative to its own history.

Across the barrel, then: moderate speculative length in crude, mixed and unremarkable in the products, and no single category screaming at a historical extreme.

Reading positioning against the fundamentals

Put the layers together and the data tells a coherent, descriptive story, without any prediction attached.

The price spike was physical and geopolitical, not positioning-driven. When a market rallies on a supply shock and the speculative crowd is not crowded long, and is in fact trimming, that is a different setup than a rally built on a stretched, one-sided spec book. Here, commercial inventories were drawing hard and the SPR was being emptied, which are the physical signals. The risk premium was real, which is Hormuz. And yet Managed Money length was middling, easing, and open interest was contracting, meaning positions were being reduced rather than piled in. Contracting open interest into a price move generally reflects hedging and de-risking rather than fresh directional conviction.

That is what the COT data shows. What it does not do, and what this article will not do, is tell you what happens next or what to do about it. The COT report is a description of who held what on a given Tuesday, not a forecast.

The timing caveat that matters most

There is one thing every reader of this week's COT report needs to hold in mind. The data is a Tuesday snapshot, and the market's biggest move came after it. The latest report captured positions as of June 9 and was published June 13. The US-Iran MOU was signed June 17, and the bulk of the roughly 11% price drop tracked the deal coming together. So the positioning described above is, by construction, a picture of the market at the crisis peak, before the relief.

The first COT report to reveal how Managed Money actually repositioned around the MOU will cover the Tuesday after the deal and publish the following Friday. Until then, anyone quoting "the latest COT" on oil is quoting the pre-MOU world. That lag is a structural feature of the report, not a flaw, but it is exactly the kind of thing that gets missed when positioning data is read without its timestamp.

How COTInsight tracks this

COTInsight computes the z-score, 3-year COT Index, open-interest trend, momentum regime, and divergence flags shown above for WTI, Brent, gasoline, diesel, and 475+ other markets, the moment the CFTC publishes each Friday. So you are reading the same disaggregated data the desks read, already scored and ranked.

• Pro adds CSV export and 10-year weekly positioning history, so you can put the current Managed Money read in the context of 2018, 2020, and 2022 rather than eyeballing it.
• Ultimate adds the full historical archive, PDF reports, AI commentary, VS comparison mode (line up WTI against Brent or gasoline side by side), a REST API, historical outcome statistics for how similar positioning setups resolved, and the Futures-Only report toggle alongside the default combined view.
• For traders who live on the chart, the COTInsight TradingView indicator (Ultimate) plots the same z-score, COT Index, and momentum-regime panels directly on any weekly chart. A moderate and not-crowded reading like this week's is then visible at a glance, in context, without leaving your charting workflow.

If you want to read crude positioning alongside the term structure during a dislocation like this, the futures forward curve explainer pairs naturally with the COT data, and the pricing page lays out what each tier includes.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did the COT report show for crude oil in June 2026?

As of the June 9, 2026 Futures + Options Combined report (the view COTInsight publishes), Managed Money in NYMEX WTI was moderately net long (about +123,200 contracts) with a z-score near +0.83 and a mid-range COT Index around 45. That is above average but not at an extreme, and it was trimming slightly. Open interest was contracting, and one major WTI venue (ICE) actually showed specs net short. Brent and the refined products were broadly middle of the road.

Why does the COT data look "calm" if oil prices spiked?

Because the spike was driven by a physical supply disruption (the Strait of Hormuz) and falling inventories, not by a crowded speculative long. The COT report measures positioning, and positioning was not stretched. A price move and a positioning extreme are two different things.

Is the latest COT report up to date with the Hormuz MOU?

No. The report reflects positions as of Tuesday, June 9, 2026, and the US-Iran MOU was signed June 17. The latest COT is a pre-deal snapshot. The first report to show repositioning around the agreement will publish the following Friday.

How low is the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve?

By mid-June 2026 the SPR had fallen to roughly 340 million barrels, its lowest since 1983, after releases of about 66 to 75 million barrels since late February at a pace near 9 million barrels a week. Analysts cite a "minimum operating level" near 240 million barrels, below which the reserve's drawdown capability degrades.

Does the COT report predict oil prices?

No. The COT report is a weekly description of positioning, not a forecast. It adds context, such as whether a move is crowded or not, and whether positioning is at a historical extreme, but it does not tell you direction or timing. This article is descriptive analysis, not advice.

Where does COTInsight get its data?

Directly from the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders publication, refreshed every Friday, then scored (z-score, COT Index, regimes) across 475+ markets. The default view is the Futures + Options Combined report. Ultimate users can also toggle the Futures-Only report.

Summary

As of mid-June 2026, the oil market is digesting the unwinding of a three-and-a-half-month Strait of Hormuz disruption. A signed 14-point US-Iran MOU reopens the strait to toll-free commercial traffic for 60 days. Prices that topped $90 fell roughly 11% toward three-month lows near $79. The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve sank to about 340 million barrels, its lowest since 1983, with the President claiming reserves could have run out within weeks. Commercial crude drew down for a seventh straight week to about 2% below the five-year average. And OPEC+ nudged quotas higher even as the UAE exited the group. The latest CFTC COT report, a June 9 snapshot taken at the crisis peak and before the MOU, showed Managed Money only moderately net long WTI and easing off, with no category at a historical extreme and open interest contracting. The clearest message in the positioning data is what it was not, namely a crowded speculative top. As always, this is a description of what the data shows, not a recommendation. Read the next report with its timestamp in mind.