International oil prices maintained wide-ranging fluctuations during the National Day holiday period. In the early part of the holiday, prices surged again due to the impact of Middle East geopolitical conflicts, but were quickly suppressed by news of G7 nations' coordinated strategic reserve releases, causing oil prices to resume a wide-ranging oscillation pattern in subsequent sessions, with prices basically staying consistent with pre-holiday levels.

Judging from the current market situation, the geopolitical landscape in the Middle East remains the core factor influencing oil prices. Regarding the US-Iran front, the two sides have still not engaged in direct dialogue recently. Before the holiday, there were reports that under Qatar's mediation, the US and Iran planned to resume negotiations, but these fizzled out after the Iranian negotiating team left the United States. Moreover, after Trump once again rejected Iran's conditions regarding the opening of the strait and stated that there remains a possibility of bombing Iran after the midterm elections, oil prices rose in response. Although Iran has repeatedly stated that the opening of the strait depends on whether the US agrees to its conditions, Trump has not made any direct statement since then, nor has he signaled any intention to possibly launch negotiations. This may suggest that Trump indeed does not appear to plan to address the Iran issue before the midterm elections.

However, it is worth noting that during the holiday, Trump and his cabinet members held a secret meeting lasting several hours to discuss the Iran war situation and follow-up response plans regarding the conflict between Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the Houthi armed forces. Although the results and content of this meeting have not yet been published, the last time a similar meeting was convened was in June 2025, just days before Israel went to war with Iran. This could very likely have a dramatic impact on the US-Iran situation in the near term and warrants close attention.

Beyond the stalemate between the US and Iran, the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Yemen's Houthi armed forces in the Red Sea region is intensifying. During the holiday, the Houthis maintained airstrikes and harassment against Saudi Arabia. Subsequently, the Yemeni government backed by Saudi Arabia announced the launch of "Yemen Dawn" operations against the Houthis. The scale and frequency of clashes between the two sides gradually escalated and spread to Saudi Aramco's oil facilities and civilian airports. From the statements of both sides, there exist irreconcilable political contradictions and conflicts between Yemen's Houthi armed forces and the Yemeni government, with each side backed by armed forces supported by Iran and Saudi Arabia respectively. This essentially means that a de-escalation of the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia remains difficult to achieve. Moreover, as the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Yemen's Houthis persists, Saudi crude oil exports through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea region have nearly come to a halt, and crude oil that originally traveled south through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait is being rerouted north via the Suez Canal/SUMED pipeline, or around the Cape of Good Hope, adding approximately 30-50 days to voyage times. This could very likely further exacerbate the current supply tightening situation in the market.

However, beyond political attributes, commodity attributes have also undergone certain changes recently. The most critical development was that on October 2, Macron issued a statement after convening a G7 meeting, stating that the G7 would release a total of 100 million barrels of oil and diesel SPR through the IEA within 4 months, with diesel to be released intensively in the first 20 days to alleviate the most tight refined product market. Following this, international oil prices plunged sharply, with European diesel prices falling by as much as 8% at one point.

Although the reserve release news had a fairly pronounced short-term impact on the market, its effect quickly diminished in the short term. The main reasons are as follows: First, this is not the G7's first reserve release. In March of this year, IEA countries released the market's largest-ever 400 million barrels of SPR to ease market pressure, and the current release scale is only 325 million barrels, not fully released. Combined with the fact that the quantity distribution of this release has not been published, this means the current G7 release scale may already include previously uncompleted portions, making it difficult to fully meet market expectations. Second, the 100 million barrel scale of this release is not entirely composed of crude oil, as diesel accounts for half the share. According to Kpler data, Hormuz crude oil flows have recovered to about 76% of pre-war levels, but diesel flows are only about 11%. Although both are below pre-war levels, crude oil has alternative sources such as the North Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Russian pipelines, while high-quality diesel has extremely low substitutability. This means the current shortage of diesel refining capacity is the real tightening problem facing European and American countries, which will cause the main destinations of the reserve releases to concentrate in Europe and America, making it difficult to fundamentally alleviate the global situation. Third, from a quantitative perspective, the total scale of this release is 100 million barrels, averaging about 830,000 barrels per day over the 4-month release period, which is basically equivalent to about 1% of global supply. Even if 50 million barrels of diesel are fully released, it could only cover half of global consumption, making it extremely difficult to fundamentally change the current supply contraction pattern.

In summary, although certain changes have occurred in commodity attributes, geopolitical attributes remain the absolute core factor influencing oil prices. Neither the US-Iran conflict nor the Red Sea conflict has shown obvious signs of de-escalation recently, and given the hardline diplomatic stance of conflict participants, a turnaround is unlikely in the short term. This means that even if geopolitical risk premiums decline in the near term, they will be difficult to fully retrace. Considering that as the US midterm election date approaches, and the possibility of conflict scale escalation is relatively low in the near term, oil prices may also find it difficult to show a clear upward trend recently. Therefore, in terms of operations, it is recommended that futures positions be mostly kept on the sidelines recently, while on the options side, one may selectively and cautiously sell near-month options to collect premiums, or use a dual-buy strategy on out-of-the-money December contract options to capture additional profit potential from geopolitical volatility. For reference only. Author profile: Fan Lei, analyst at Chang'an Futures, Master's degree, futures investment consulting license number: Z0021225, with solid theoretical foundation and international perspective; since entering the futures industry, has been dedicated to research and analysis of macro and crude oil energy-chemical sector and options, skilled at starting from fundamental analysis and combining policy orientation theory to build variety analysis frameworks for market judgment, and committed to creating value for clients with professional knowledge and sincere attitude.