{"id":771695,"date":"2026-05-04T02:56:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T02:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/771695\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T02:56:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T02:56:20","slug":"oil-prices-fall-in-choppy-trade-as-trump-plans-to-free-ships-stranded-due-to-mideast-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/771695\/","title":{"rendered":"Oil prices fall in choppy trade as Trump plans to &#8216;free&#8217; ships stranded due to Mideast conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Ateela 2 Oil Tanker boat navigates the sea on April 28, 2026 on Qeshm Island, Iran in the Strait of Hormuz. <\/p>\n<p>Asghar Besharati | Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Oil prices fell in choppy trade Monday, as market participants assess U.S. President Donald Trump&#8217;s announcement to &#8220;free&#8221; ships that have been trapped due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, amid lingering tensions between Tehran and Washington. <\/p>\n<p>International benchmark\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/@LCO.1\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brent<\/a>\u00a0crude futures fell 0.35% to $107.77 per barrel, while U.S.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/@CL.1\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">West Texas Intermediate<\/a>\u00a0futures were down 0.57% at $101.31 per barrel. <\/p>\n<p>As the Hormuz Strait continues to face a blockade, traffic via the critical energy waterway that saw about a fifth of the world&#8217;s energy supplies transit through it prior to the war, has come to a near standstill.<\/p>\n<p>The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency said Monday that a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ukmto.org\/-\/media\/ukmto\/products\/20260503-ukmto_warning_attack_052-26.pdf?rev=377076fea20141b49aeb81cf508a1ba4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">tanker was hit by projectiles<\/a> north of the city of of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, underscoring the dangers for ships navigating the Mideast region. <\/p>\n<p>Stock Chart IconStock chart icon<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static-redesign.cnbcfm.com\/dist\/a54b41835a8b60db28c2.svg\" class=\"Collapsible-dismissButton\" alt=\"hide content\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Brent oil<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u00a0said in his <a href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/posts\/116512555123589170\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Truth Social post<\/a> Sunday that the U.S. would <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/05\/03\/trump-iran-strait-of-hormuz-trapped-ships.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">attempt to &#8220;free&#8221;<\/a> stranded cargo ships affected by the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/03\/27\/trump-strait-of-hormuz-iran-war.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Strait of Hormuz<\/a>\u00a0closure since the start of the Iran war. <\/p>\n<p>Dubbed &#8220;Project Freedom,&#8221; the effort will focus mainly on getting civilian ships flagged in countries not affiliated with the conflict out of the waterway so they can &#8220;freely and ably get on with their business.&#8221; It is set to begin on Monday. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;U.S. military support to Project Freedom will include guided-missile destroyers, over 100 land and sea-based aircraft, multi-domain unmanned platforms, and 15,000 service members,&#8221; the U.S. Central Command said shortly after Trump&#8217;s announcement.<\/p>\n<p>Traders will also be assessing OPEC+ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/05\/03\/opec-announces-188000-barrels-per-day-output-increase-.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">agreeing<\/a> to an oil output increase of 188,000 barrels per day, in the cartel&#8217;s first meeting since the exit of its key member, the United Arab Emirates. <\/p>\n<p>Gaurav Ganguly, head of international economics at Moody&#8217;s Analytics, warned of the impact of a prolonged Mideast conflict on global economy on CNBC&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/asia-squawk-box\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Squawk Box Asia,<\/a>&#8221; as oil prices stay elevated: &#8220;It doesn&#8217;t take much from this point for the global economy to sink into recession. We estimate something like $125 for Brent over a sustained period of time will push the global economy into some sort of recession.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ateela 2 Oil Tanker boat navigates the sea on April 28, 2026 on Qeshm Island, Iran in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":771696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[307386,259682,316412,133,81,69,51,316411,83,135,50,3345,52,10317,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-771695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-cl26m","9":"tag-lco26n","10":"tag-lco26v","11":"tag-breaking-news-markets","12":"tag-business-news","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ice-brent-crude","16":"tag-iran","17":"tag-markets","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-oil-and-gas","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-united-arab-emirates","22":"tag-united-states"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116514062152837082","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771695","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=771695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/771696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}