Oil Tops $95 as a Saudi Tanker Burns in the Red Sea
Brent crude pushed above $95 a barrel, a six-week high and a near-$20 rise since fighting resumed on 7 July, after fresh attacks on Gulf shipping. Yemen’s Houthis said they had struck two oil tankers; the Saudi-linked Encelia was hit and caught fire at the bow, though its crew were reported safe. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard separately claimed a tanker had caught fire after an explosion near the Strait of Hormuz.
With the strait already throttled, traders now face a second front as the Houthis enforce a widening blockade of Saudi-linked cargo in the Red Sea. One shipping executive, Nikolas Maniatis, said bluntly that “nothing is going through” the waterway for international merchant vessels. Refined fuels — diesel and petrol above all — are under the greatest price pressure, and war-risk insurance has multiplied. For British motorists the effect feeds straight to the forecourt just as domestic inflation had begun to ease. Watch the Bab el-Mandeb and Hormuz chokepoints, and whether Riyadh retaliates.