Shafaq News
Oil prices surged over 4% on Mondayas energy shipments via the Strait of Hormuz remained under threat, with theU.S. and Iran announcing renewed military strikes.
Brent crude futures climbed $3.10,or 4.08%, to $79.11 by 0325 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude rose$2.95, or 4.11%, to $74.36 a barrel.
U.S. forces completed another waveof strikes against Iran on Sunday, hitting dozens of targets at multiplelocations with precision munitions, the Central Command said. Iran'sRevolutionary Guards said on Monday they attacked U.S. military bases in Kuwaitand Bahrain.
U.S. President Donald Trump said onSunday that the Strait of Hormuz is open to commercial traffic, although Irandeclared earlier that it closed the strait after a vessel traveled on anunapproved route and was struck.
Some 20% of the world's oil andliquefied natural gas transited the strait before the war began at the end ofFebruary.
Six vessels transited the strait onSunday, ship-tracking data from Kpler showed, the lowest number in five weeks.
The escalating attacks cast further doubton the future of an interim U.S.-Iranian agreement signed last month thataimed to reopen the strait and end the war after a further 60 days ofnegotiations.
Following the agreement, global oilsupply rose by 4.1 million barrels per day in June, but remained 9.4 millionbpd below pre-war levels, the International Energy Agency said in its monthlyreport on Friday.
"Hopes of a relatively quickresolution to the recent skirmishes may be in doubt after tension escalatedover the weekend," ANZ analysts said in a note.
IG market analyst Tony Sycamore saidthe relatively tame rise in oil prices suggested the market was taking the viewthat the current flare-up represented an escalation within a fragile truceand fell well short of a complete collapse of the ceasefire.
"How accurate that view isremains to be seen," he said in a note.
(REUTERS)
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