Oil prices rose about 20% on Monday as the US-Israel war with Iran continued, raising fears of prolonged disruptions to energy supplies.
Anton Petrus | Moment | fake images
Oil prices plunged 10% on Tuesday after US President Donald Trump warned that Tehran would be hit “twenty times as hard” if it tried to stop oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, while noting that the conflict with Iran could end soon.
International Brent Crude it was down nearly 11% to $88.36 per barrel as of 9:25 p.m. ET on Monday. American crude oil fell more than 10% to $85.17 per barrel. The declines come after oil surpassed $100 on Monday.
“If Iran does anything to stop the flow of oil within the Strait of Hormuz, the United States of America will hit them TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit so far,” US President Donald Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Monday in the United States.
Oil prices so far this year
Earlier in the day, Trump told CBS News by phone that ships were still passing through the Strait of Hormuz, adding that he was “thinking about taking it over.” He also noted that the war could end soon.
“I think there’s a lot of optimism in the market,” said Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group.
“We’ve seen it today with the collapse of oil prices due to what we used to call the president’s verbal intervention.”
McNally said the market is still struggling to process the scale of the disruption, noting that for decades traders assumed that no country would be allowed to close the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical oil bottleneck.
The fact that it happened is “completely calamitous and unexpected,” McNally said, noting that even during the tensions of the 1980s the waterway was never completely closed.
For now, markets seem to be betting that the situation will not last long and that shipping through the Strait will eventually be restored, he added.
