Oil prices jumped to their highest levels in months on Monday as Iran and Israel escalated attacks in the Middle East, disrupting shipments from the region.
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Oil prices surged Friday after Qatar’s energy minister said the Middle East war could result in Gulf exporters shutting down production in days.
Global benchmark Brent crude futures added 4.5% to trade at $89.23 a barrel by 6:58 a.m. ET, notching a fresh 52-week high and levels not seen in nearly two years. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were last seen 6.3% higher at $86.06, hitting their highest level since April 2024.
The spike comes as the U.S.-Iran conflict spreads across the Middle East, disrupting energy production and bringing traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping route, to a near standstill.
Qatar’s energy minister Saad al-Kaabi told the Financial Times Friday that crude prices could reach $150 a barrel in the coming weeks if oil tankers were unable to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, he said. This could “bring down the economies of the world,” Kaabi said.
“Everybody that has not called for force majeure we expect will do so in the next few days that this continues,” Kaabi told the FT. “All exporters in the Gulf region will have to call force majeure. If they don’t, they are at some point going to pay the liability for that legally, and that’s their choice.”
Crude oil prices
Crude prices are on track for their biggest weekly gain since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.
Prices briefly dipped overnight after the U.S. issued a 30-day waiver to India — the world’s third-largest oil importer — to resume purchases of Russian oil. Washington had earlier imposed 25% “penalty” tariffs on India for buying Russian crude, which were revoked last month.
The retreat in prices also came after news agency Reuters, citing an unnamed White House official, reported that the U.S. Treasury is planning to announce measures to curb energy price spikes, including potential interventions in the oil futures market.
The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline jumped nearly 27 cents since in the week to Thursday to $3.25, according to data from U.S. travel organization AAA.
The conflict between Iran and the U.S. enters its seventh day on Friday. In a press conference on Thursday, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the U.S. had “only just begun to fight.”
“Iran is hoping that we cannot sustain this, which is a really bad miscalculation,” he told reporters.
“There’s no shortage of American will here … If you think you’ve seen something, just wait. The amount of combat power that’s still flowing, that’s still coming, that we’ll be able to project over Iran is at multiples of what it currently is right now when you add up our capabilities and those of the Israeli Defense Forces.”
Inflation boost?
“Contrary to what consensus thinks, I think higher energy prices could actually be deflationary for the U.S.,” Atakan Bakiskan, chief U.S. economist at Berenberg, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Friday.
“I mean obviously the higher energy price is going to push up headline CPI inflation mechanically. But when you think about it, it also reduces consumer purchasing power, it’s bad for consumer sentiment. I mean to pay for higher gasoline prices, consumers have to cut demand for other goods, right?” Bakiskan said.
“So, it could actually reduce core inflation in that sense and the Fed’s own macro model is actually saying that as well,” he added.
