By Enes Tunagur <\/p>\n
LONDON, Aug 31 (Reuters) – Oil prices rose more than 3.5% on Monday after the U.S. attacked an Iranian island in the Strait of Hormuz and Tehran said \u200cit had retaliated, as their conflict extended into its sixth month. <\/p>\n
Brent crude futures were up $3.15, \u200cor 3.58%, to $91.25 a barrel at 0903 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was up $2.96, or 3.55%, to $86.36. <\/p>\n
U.S. forces struck \u200btwo launchers on Iran’s Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, the first known American strikes on the country since late July. <\/p>\n
In response, Iran attacked two U.S. air bases in Jordan, Iranian media reported on Monday, citing Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. <\/p>\n
“Renewed military strikes in the Middle East and concerns of further oil supply \u200cdisruptions have lifted oil prices,” said UBS \u2060analyst Giovanni Staunovo, adding that markets will now focus on whether the situation de-escalates or not. <\/p>\n
U.S. President Donald Trump said in a social media post on Sunday \u2060that Iran’s energy hub of Kharg Island was being “blown to smithereens”, but there was no evidence the island was under attack. The post, which included an AI-generated video, provided no further details. Iran denied any attack on \u200bthe \u200bisland and said oil operations were continuing. <\/p>\n
Efforts to negotiate \u200ban end to the conflict remain stalled as \u200cmediators seek to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of global oil supplies passed before the war began at the end of February. <\/p>\n
Part of the sharp market reaction reflected thin trading volumes due to a UK public holiday, said Saxo Bank analyst Ole Hansen. <\/p>\n
Shipping data showed the number of visible commodity vessels transiting the strait over the weekend fell to five a day, highlighting caution among \u200coperators concerned about attacks on shipping. <\/p>\n
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade \u200bOperations agency said on Sunday that a tanker had been \u200bstruck by a projectile while entering the \u200bstrait on Saturday. <\/p>\n
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Reuters on Sunday that the U.S. \u200cwas likely to impose new secondary sanctions \u200bon Iran every week. <\/p>\n
Despite Monday’s \u200brally, Brent and WTI were still on track to post modest losses for August after falling more than 4% last week, their first weekly declines in three weeks. <\/p>\n
Trump also said on \u200bSunday that oil secured under a \u200crecently struck deal with Venezuela would be used to replenish the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, \u200bwhich has fallen to near its lowest level in 44 years. <\/p>\n
(Reporting by Florence Tan \u200band Colleen Howe. Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Mark Potter) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Enes Tunagur LONDON, Aug 31 (Reuters) – Oil prices rose more than 3.5% on Monday after the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":831792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,18387,352268,801,249801,3,38575,2830,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-831791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-brent","tag-enes-tunagur","tag-iran","tag-iranian","tag-news","tag-reuters","tag-u-s","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831791","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=831791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/831792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}