{"id":416248,"date":"2026-01-19T05:44:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T05:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/416248\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T05:44:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T05:44:07","slug":"oil-firmer-as-ebbing-iranian-protests-lower-chance-of-u-s-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/416248\/","title":{"rendered":"Oil firmer as ebbing Iranian protests lower chance of U.S. attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oil prices rose slightly on Monday, as Iran’s crackdown on protests quelled civil unrest, narrowing chances for a U.S. attack that could disrupt supplies.<\/p>\n

Zhengzaishuru | Istock | Getty Images<\/p>\n

Oil\u00a0prices were up slightly on Monday, after the previous session’s rise, as Iran’s deadly crackdown on protests quelled civil unrest, narrowing chances for a U.S. attack on the major Middle Eastern producer that could disrupt supplies.<\/p>\n

Brent crude<\/a>\u00a0was trading at $64.19 a barrel by 0327 GMT, up 6 cents or 0.09%.<\/p>\n

U.S. West Texas Intermediate<\/a> for Feb. rose 9 cents, or 0.15%, to $59.53 a barrel. That contract expires on Tuesday and the more active March contract was at $59.39, up 5 cents, or 0.08%.<\/p>\n

Iran’s violent crackdown on protests spurred by\u00a0economic hardship, which officials say\u00a0killed\u00a05,000 people, quelled the unrest.<\/p>\n

U.S. President Donald Trump seemed to step back from his earlier threats of intervention, saying on social media Iran had called off mass hangings of protesters, although the country had not announced any such plans.<\/p>\n

That appeared to lower the odds of a U.S. intervention that could have disrupted\u00a0oil\u00a0flows from the fourth-largest producer among the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.<\/p>\n

The downturn signaled a renewed retreat from multi-month highs reached last week, although prices still\u00a0settled higher\u00a0on Friday. The U.S. military move to the Gulf underscores continued concern, however.<\/p>\n

“The pullback followed a swift unwind of the ‘Iran premium’ that had driven prices to 12-week highs, triggered by signs of easing in Iran’s crackdown on protesters,” IG market analyst Tony Sycamore said in a note.<\/p>\n

That was accentuated by U.S. inventory data showing a substantial crude build and reinforcing bearish supply pressures, he added.<\/p>\n

U.S. markets are closed on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.<\/p>\n

Crude stocks were up by 3.4 million barrels in the week ended January 9, the EIA said last week, versus analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 1.7 million-barrel draw.<\/p>\n

Markets are closely watching plans for Venezuela’s\u00a0oil\u00a0fields, after Trump said the United States would run its\u00a0oil\u00a0industry after the capture of Nicolas Maduro.<\/p>\n

The United States is moving as fast as possible to grant Chevron<\/a> an expanded production license in the country, the U.S. energy secretary told Reuters on Friday.<\/p>\n

But markets were less confident about the prospects for scaled-up Venezuelan production.<\/p>\n

“Venezuela and Ukraine remain on the back burner,” said Vandana Hari, founder of\u00a0oil\u00a0market analysis provider Vanda Insights.<\/p>\n

“Expect rangebound movement for the rest of the day, with U.S. markets closed.”<\/p>\n

China’s refinery throughput in 2025 rose 4.1% year on year, while crude\u00a0oil\u00a0output grew 1.5% from 2024, with both reaching all-time highs, government data showed on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oil prices rose slightly on Monday, as Iran’s crackdown on protests quelled civil unrest, narrowing chances for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,116,122,17557,45842,138631,12,1872,124435,801,112,3,45063,644,21,19,22,20,25,24,18232,124434],"class_list":["post-416248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-breaking-news-markets","tag-business-news","tag-chevron-corp","tag-commodity-markets","tag-crude-oil-markets","tag-donald-trump","tag-energy","tag-ice-brent-crude-oct25","tag-iran","tag-markets","tag-news","tag-oil-and-gas","tag-trump-administration","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-venezuela","tag-wt-offshore-inc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}