SerpApi.Org
After 10 consecutive days of U.S. strikes on Iran, Brent crude oil futures settled above the key threshold of $90 a barrel Tuesday.
Brent futures ended the day at $91.01, up 2.1%. The last time they settled above $90 a barrel was on June 11, less than a week before the U.S. and Iran signed a memo of understanding aimed at ending hostilities in the Strait of Hormuz while a longer-term peace deal was negotiated. But that 60-day truce ended less than a month after it was signed.
Speaking to reporters while meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in the Oval Office Tuesday, President Donald Trump indicated that the U.S. attacks were unlikely to end anytime soon. “We’re not leaving tomorrow,” he said, despite media reports of a possible 10-day cease-fire and Trump’s claim that Iran wants “to desperately meet.”
The renewed attacks aren’t the only thing pushing oil prices higher. U.S. oil reserves are currently at their lowest levels since 1983 at just 311 million barrels, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Those reserves have been a critical buffer helping to avoid even sharper oil price spikes.
A new blockade of the Red Sea’s southern gateway—Saudi Arabia’s main workaround during the Strait of Hormuz blockage—announced by Iran-allied Houthis in Yemen is curtailing traffic there as well. Even before the blockade was announced, loadings through the Red Sea’s Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint had fallen 34% in the past two weeks, according to Kpler’s MarineTraffic data service.
Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is testifying before the Senate appropriations committee regarding the $67 billion the department is seeking, much of which will go toward funding the war.
Write to Anita Hamilton at [email protected]