SYDNEY — Shares in Santos Ltd rose Tuesday as part of a broader rally across ASX-listed energy stocks, with global oil and gas prices continuing to climb amid persistent uncertainty over shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical energy transit corridors.

The stock closed up 5.36% at $8.06, after trading between $7.82 and $8.07 during the session, on volume of nearly 13.8 million shares, giving the company a market capitalization of approximately $26 billion. Over the past 12 months, Santos shares have returned 2.41%, a comparatively modest gain that reflects a year of significant volatility for the stock even as global oil prices have trended higher.

Tuesday’s advance came as Brent crude futures extended their climb on renewed doubts that a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to normal shipping traffic would be reached soon. The strait, which carries roughly a quarter of the world’s seaborne crude oil and close to a fifth of global liquefied natural gas shipments under normal conditions, has remained a central flashpoint for global energy markets since tensions between the United States and Iran escalated earlier this year. Shipping data has shown daily vessel movements through the corridor running well below pre-conflict levels for months, keeping a persistent risk premium embedded in global oil prices.

As a Brent-linked producer with substantial oil price exposure, Santos would typically be expected to benefit directly from the kind of sustained price rally seen in recent months. According to the company’s own disclosures, each $10 movement in the oil price shifts Santos’s annualized gross revenue by roughly $149 million at full production rates, a level of leverage that underscores how significant swings in crude prices can be for the company’s underlying earnings power.

Even so, analysts have noted that Santos has, for much of this year, lagged the broader oil price rally that might otherwise be expected to lift its shares more forcefully. The stock has traded mostly in a band between roughly $7.00 and $7.80 for much of the year, well below the level a foreign suitor had previously been willing to pay for the company, a dynamic that has left some investors questioning why the shares haven’t tracked crude prices more closely even on days when Hormuz-related fears have driven sharp intraday moves.

Part of that underperformance has been tied to company-specific developments rather than the broader commodity backdrop. Santos recently trimmed its full-year 2026 production guidance to a range of 99 million to 105 million barrels of oil equivalent, down from a previous range of 101 million to 111 million barrels of oil equivalent. While the top end of the revised guidance still implies growth as the company’s Barossa and Pikka projects ramp toward full production, the downgrade landed in the same reporting period as a revenue miss, giving the market reason to look past the favorable pricing backdrop in its near-term assessment of the stock.

Despite that recent softness, brokers covering Santos have largely maintained buy-equivalent ratings on the stock, with average price targets sitting comfortably above current trading levels, reflecting continued confidence in the company’s longer-term production growth trajectory even amid near-term execution challenges. The Pikka project in Alaska, in particular, has been highlighted by analysts as a key driver of the company’s growing oil price leverage as it moves toward plateau production.

Tuesday’s gains for Santos came alongside similar advances across the broader ASX energy sector, with smaller rival Beach Energy also posting gains during the session as oil prices continued climbing. The sector-wide move reflected the direct sensitivity of Australian oil and gas producers to swings in global crude benchmarks, a dynamic that has repeatedly driven sharp single-day moves across the sector throughout 2026 as the Middle East conflict has continued to generate unpredictable headlines.

Santos, one of Australia’s largest oil and gas producers, maintains a diversified portfolio of upstream production and liquefied natural gas assets spanning Australia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and North America. The company has continued to position its growth projects, including Barossa and Pikka, as key drivers of future production and cash flow growth even as near-term guidance revisions have periodically weighed on investor sentiment.

With the Strait of Hormuz situation still unresolved and global oil markets remaining highly sensitive to geopolitical developments, analysts say Santos and its Australian energy sector peers are likely to continue experiencing significant share price volatility in the sessions ahead, closely tracking any further news on the prospects for a resolution to the standoff.