Oil Prices Hit Five-Month High After Gulf Tanker Attacks
Brent crude surged 3% to $112 a barrel as strikes in Saudi Arabia and tanker hits near the Strait of Hormuz rattled global supply.
Oil prices surged to their highest level in five months on Thursday after a wave of attacks targeting shipping vessels near the Strait of Hormuz and infrastructure in Saudi Arabia stoked fresh fears about disruptions to global crude supply.
Brent crude, the internationally recognized oil benchmark, climbed 3% to reach $112 a barrel — a price point not seen since May 18. The sharp move reflected market anxiety over the vulnerability of a critical maritime chokepoint through which a significant share of the world's oil flows.
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Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed responsibility for striking four vessels in the northern Gulf. Separately, three additional tankers were reported hit by mines near the Strait of Hormuz, compounding concerns about the safety of commercial shipping in the region and the reliability of supply chains that depend on uninterrupted passage through those waters.
The incidents represent an escalation in the ongoing Middle East conflict that traders and energy analysts have been watching closely. Any sustained threat to Hormuz transit capacity carries outsized consequences for global oil markets, given the strait's role as a bottleneck for exports from Gulf producers including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, and Iraq. A prolonged disruption at even a fraction of that capacity can translate quickly into supply shortfalls and elevated prices worldwide.
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