Brent crude surged up to 20% to $111.04 per barrel, the highest since July 2022, while West Texas Intermediate jumped 22%
After the price of a barrel of oil surpassed US$100, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, posted on his social network, Truth Social, that prices will fall when the “Iranian nuclear threat is eliminated”.
Brent crude surged up to 20% to $111.04 per barrel, the highest since July 2022, while West Texas Intermediate jumped 22%.
“Short-term oil prices, which will fall rapidly once the Iranian nuclear threat is eliminated, are a very small price to pay for the security and peace of the US and the world. Only fools would think otherwise! President DJT,” the American president wrote on his network.
The decline in production in the Middle East has been driving prices up since the United States and Israel attacked Iran at the end of February. Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates have started to reduce production as stocks are quickly depleting due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Iraq began a production shutdown last week.
The war in the Middle East shows no sign of abating after US and Israeli attacks on Iran more than a week ago. Disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — a narrow waterway that normally carries a fifth of the world’s oil — and attacks on energy infrastructure have driven up crude oil and natural gas prices.
