Oil prices rose in early Asian trading on Wednesday amid heightened concerns about energy supplies from the Middle East after new attacks on merchant ships in the region, Reuters reported, BTA reported.
Brent crude futures rose 72 cents, or 0.81 percent, to $89.63 a barrel by 03:53 Bulgarian time. U.S. light crude rose 71 cents, or 0.85 percent, to $83.91 a barrel. Both contracts rose more than $1 on Tuesday, hitting their highest closes since July 31, after jumping about 5 percent earlier in the week as hopes of a U.S.-Iran peace deal faded. The United States and Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis reported separate attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb on Tuesday. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is at the southeastern tip of the Red Sea, connecting it to the Gulf of Aden in the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.
A cargo ship was attacked by the Houthis in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on Sunday, killing three crew members, two Yemeni coast guard officials and two government officials quoted by Reuters said.
The US military said this morning that it had opened fire on a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship that tried to reach an Iranian port in violation of a Washington-imposed blockade.
Meanwhile, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, said the critically important sea route through the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed unless the US accepted Iran's conditions for ending the war, including the release of frozen Iranian assets and an end to other conflicts in the region. region.
According to data from shipping tracking platforms, traffic through the Strait of Hormuz decreased to six ships on Monday, compared to approximately 11 vessels in the previous 10 days. Before the conflict began in late February, daily traffic on the route was between 125 and 140 ships.
On the supply side, a Reuters poll of analysts found that U.S. crude and fuel inventories were expected to have fallen last week.
However, market sources, citing data from the American Petroleum Institute, said U.S. crude inventories rose sharply in the week ended Aug. 7, while gasoline and distillate inventories were lower.
Crude oil inventories rose by about 9.1 million barrels, while gasoline and distillate inventories fell by 1.5 million barrels and 596,000 barrels, respectively, from the previous week, the sources said.
The increase in crude oil inventories was significantly larger than expected and, if confirmed by the U.S. Energy Information Administration report later today, could ease market concerns about supply shortages, Haitong Futures said in a note.
In terms of longer-term supply, the Energy Information Administration expects disruptions in Middle Eastern crude supplies to deprive the market of about 600,000 barrels per day by the end of 2027.