Oil Jumps to a One-Month High as West Demands Strait Reopened
Oil prices climbed more than four per cent to their highest in over a month as Iran and the United States traded strikes on energy and shipping infrastructure, with Brent settling around $88 a barrel. Washington reimposed a naval blockade of Iranian ports, while Tehran declared the Strait of Hormuz closed. The European Union and Gulf states jointly demanded that Iran halt its attacks and keep the waterway open without fees.
Roughly a fifth of the world’s oil normally transits Hormuz, and flows had already collapsed from about 20 million barrels a day before the conflict to 2.7 million during the spring crisis, prompting the largest-ever coordinated release of emergency stocks. With Brent up more than 14 per cent on the week, a fresh sustained closure threatens to unravel the tentative supply recovery forecasters had expected. For Britain the transmission is quick, through petrol, diesel and the wholesale gas price that sets energy bills. Watch Houthi activity in the Red Sea, which Iran has reportedly urged its allies to escalate.