Oil prices climbed on Wednesday, moving away from a seven-week low touched in the previous session, after the US military launched new strikes against Iran and as market data showed another large draw in US crude stocks.
Brent futures rose 66 cents, or 0.7%, to $92.11 a barrel at 0406 GMT, while US West Texas Intermediate crude crude climbed 60 cents, or 0.7%, to $88.80.
The US military struck Iranian targets after President Donald Trump vowed on Tuesday to respond to the downing of a US Apache attack helicopter, a fresh escalation ?that threatens to unravel a fragile ceasefire between Washington and Tehran.
The latest attacks shifted traders’ focus back toward war risks and potential supply disruptions, said Priyanka Sachdeva, senior market analyst at Phillip Nova.
“While diplomatic efforts remain ongoing, the latest military exchanges have reintroduced a geopolitical risk premium into oil markets,” Sachdeva said. Tehran said it would resume hostilities if Israel continued to attack the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon. Israel’s refusal to end its campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah has hindered Trump’s efforts to extend a tenuous ceasefire in the wider US-Israeli war with Iran into a durable settlement.
“With no imminent deal in sight and with the global oil market tightening significantly every day, we see upside to prices, particularly if these ?disruptions linger into the third quarter, a period of seasonally stronger oil demand,” ING commodity strategists said in a note on Wednesday.