Brent crude futures rise $2.01, or 2.05%, to $99.93 a barrel
\n LONDON
\nBenchmark Brent crude oil futures rose past $100 a barrel on Wednesday, hitting a more than six-week high and breaching the symbolic threshold for the first time since July 24 as intensifying conflict in the Middle East heightened concerns about oil flows from the region.
\nBrent crude futures were up $2.01, or 2.05 per cent, at $99.93 a barrel by 01:02pm PKT, after earlier touching $100.19, while US West Texas Intermediate crude was up $1.49, or 1.60pc, at $94.52 a barrel. Brent crude prices have risen by a quarter since early last month as hopes fade for a permanent resolution to the six-month-old US-Iran conflict.
\nSince the Iran war began on February 28, Brent has surged as high as $126.41 a barrel, a peak reached on April 30. This week, attacks by Houthis on Saudi energy facilities set oil installations ablaze, threatening a significant expansion of the conflict.
\nThe attacks also threaten crude shipments via the Red Sea, which has been a key alternative route to the crucial Strait of Hormuz, where oil flows have been severely curtailed since the February 28 start of the Iran war.
\n\u201cMarket participants appear to be pricing in a more prolonged conflict in the Middle East as well as the risk that the latest escalation in military strikes disrupts oil flows from the Middle East,\u201d said Hamad Hussain, senior climate and commodities economist at Capital Economics.
\n\u201cThe key risk is whether the recent attacks on oil tankers lead to fewer ship-to-ship transfers taking place in the Gulf of Oman, which have so far played a key role in providing oil to global markets and keeping a lid on prices.\u201d A growing number of banks, including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and HSBC, have raised their crude price forecasts in recent days.
\nIn the week before a resumption in fighting on August 30, roughly 8 million to 9m bpd had flowed through Hormuz, double the previous week\u2019s volume, according to Rystad Energy\u2019s Chief Economist Claudio Galimberti, although more recently it had fallen below 2 million bpd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brent crude futures rise $2.01, or 2.05%, to $99.93 a barrel LONDON Benchmark Brent crude oil futures rose past $100 a barrel on Wednesday, hitting a more than six-week high and breaching the symbolic threshold for the first time since July 24 as intensifying conflict in the Middle East heightened concerns about oil flows from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463294,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-566467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business"],"yoast_head":"\n