Oil prices rose in early trade on Wednesday, extending the previous \u200bsession’s surge, as concerns over supply disruption intensified after the U.S. and\u00a0Iran\u00a0exchanged strikes overnight, dimming \u200chopes for a quick easing of tensions in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Brent crude futures rose $1.03, or 1.1%, to $95.68 a barrel, and US\u00a0West Texas Intermediate crude futures climbed 61 cents, or 0.7%, to $90.83.<\/p>\n
Both contracts soared more than $4 on Tuesday, marking Brent’s largest gain \u200bsince July 24 and WTI’s largest since July 23.<\/p>\n
The US\u00a0said it had launched a series of\u00a0airstrikes\u00a0against \u200btargets in Iran overnight, prompting a response from Tehran, in the most serious escalation of \u2060the conflict between the two countries in weeks.<\/p>\n
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the US\u00a0attacks would further restrict \u200btraffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway that carried about one-fifth of the global oil consumed before \u200bthe conflict and which Iran has effectively closed to commercial shipping.<\/p>\n
“Developments in recent days brought risks to regional oil supplies back into focus … We\u2019ve seen oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz despite the stalemate between the US and Iran, but rising tensions clearly put \u200bcrossings at risk,” said ING analysts in a client note.<\/p>\n
The IRGC also said it had targeted a US\u00a0military base \u200bin Jordan with ballistic missiles that it claimed had killed a large number of US\u00a0forces, while Iranian state media reported a \u200clarge-scale drone \u2060attack on a US\u00a0base in Bahrain in response to the American strikes.<\/p>\n
Read:\u00a0Oil prices rise as latest fighting revives Mideast supply disruption risks<\/p>\n
Jordan’s military said its air defences intercepted 10 of 13 ballistic missiles that entered its airspace, while two US\u00a0officials said no American casualties had been reported so far from the attacks. Separately, Kuwait said its armed forces were responding to hostile drone activity.<\/p>\n
The latest exchange followed \u200ba weekend flare-up in hostilities, \u200bthe first since July, \u2060and came after attacks on two tankers departing the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, causing further disruptions to oil supplies and forcing traders to seek alternative crude shipments.<\/p>\n
“The oil \u200bmarket is no longer pricing just the risk of war; it is increasingly pricing \u200bthe cost of \u2060an unresolved war,” said Priyanka Sachdeva, Phillip Nova’s head of market insights.<\/p>\n
“Until there is clear evidence that negotiations can produce a lasting resolution and that normal oil flows through the Strait are returning, the risk premium in crude is likely to \u2060remain elevated.”<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, \u200bin the US, the world’s largest oil producer, crude inventories fell by 2.6 \u200bmillion barrels in the week ended August 28, while distillate stocks, which include diesel and heating oil, declined by 265,000 barrels, market sources said, \u200bciting data from the American Petroleum Institute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Oil prices rose in early trade on Wednesday, extending the previous \u200bsession’s surge, as concerns over supply disruption intensified after the U.S. and\u00a0Iran\u00a0exchanged strikes overnight, dimming \u200chopes for a quick easing of tensions in the Middle East. Brent crude futures rose $1.03, or 1.1%, to $95.68 a barrel, and US\u00a0West Texas Intermediate crude futures climbed …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5592"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5596,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5592\/revisions\/5596"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}