By Enes Tunagur <\/p>\n
LONDON, Aug 31 (Reuters) – Oil prices were trading nearly 2% higher on Monday after the U.S. attacked an Iranian island in the Strait of Hormuz and drew retaliation from \u200cTehran, as their conflict extended into its sixth month. <\/p>\n
Brent crude futures climbed $1.77, or 2%, to $89.87 a \u200cbarrel by 0733 GMT while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was at $84.85, up $1.45, or 1.74%. <\/p>\n
U.S. forces struck two launchers on Iran’s Larak Island \u200bin the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, the first known American strikes on the country since late July. <\/p>\n
In response, Iran attacked two U.S. air bases in Jordan, Iranian media reported on Monday, citing Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. <\/p>\n
U.S. President Donald Trump said in a brief social media post on Sunday that Iran’s energy hub of Kharg Island was being “blown to \u200csmithereens”, but there was no evidence \u2060that the island was under attack and the post, accompanied by an AI-generated clip, contained no further details. Iran denied the attack on the island, adding that oil operations \u2060continued. <\/p>\n
Negotiations to end the conflict are at an impasse while mediators work to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil flowed before the war began at the end of February. <\/p>\n
“We see more chances of \u200bcontained \u200bconfrontation rather than any sustained escalation in the conflict. What \u200bcontinues to be impacted with every flare \u200cup are the timelines for Hormuz ‘reopening’,” said Suvro Sarkar, head of energy research at DBS. <\/p>\n
“We were earlier hoping that we could be back to deal negotiations for U.S.-Iran by the end of 3Q, but that is looking more unlikely now. Thus, expect oil prices to remain rangebound in the $85-95 per barrel range unless more clarity emerges on the situation in the Strait of Hormuz.” <\/p>\n
The number of visible commodity vessels that sailed through the strait \u200cover the weekend dropped to five a day, shipping data showed \u200bon Monday, reflecting caution among companies wary of attacks on ships. <\/p>\n
The \u200bUnited Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations reported on Sunday \u200bthat a tanker was struck by a projectile while sailing inbound through the strait \u200con Saturday. <\/p>\n
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Reuters \u200bon Sunday that the U.S. \u200bis likely to issue new secondary sanctions weekly on Iran. <\/p>\n
Brent and WTI are set to post small declines in August after falling more than 4% last week, in what was their first weekly \u200bdecline in three. <\/p>\n
Trump said on Sunday \u200cthat oil from a recently struck deal with Venezuela will be used to replenish the U.S. \u200bStrategic Petroleum Reserve, which has dropped near its lowest level in 44 years. <\/p>\n
(Reporting by Florence Tan \u200band Colleen Howe; Editing by Jamie Freed, Kirsten Donovan) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Enes Tunagur LONDON, Aug 31 (Reuters) – Oil prices were trading nearly 2% higher on Monday after…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1034671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[414051,270477,50,1439,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-1034670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","category-us","tag-enes-tunagur","tag-hormuz","tag-news","tag-u-s","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117189409910260438","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1034670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1034671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1034670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1034670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1034670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}