Oil Surpasses $100 a Barrel Amid Iran War | Oil and gas

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Crude oil prices are up 20 percent as a widening regional conflict threatens global energy supplies.

Oil prices have crossed $100 a barrel for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine amid a wider fallout from the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Brent crude, the global benchmark, rose as much as 20 percent on Sunday to $111 a barrel as fears of prolonged disruptions to global energy supplies rose.

US President Donald Trump, who campaigned heavily on cost-of-living concerns in the 2024 election, dismissed the surge.

“Short-term oil prices falling rapidly after the end of the destruction of the Iranian nuclear threat is a very small price to pay for the safety and peace of the USA and the world,” Trump said in a Satya social media post.

“Only fools think differently!”

Crude oil prices have surged nearly 50 percent since the US and Israeli launched a joint attack on Iran on February 28.

Iran’s threats and attacks have effectively halted shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for about one-fifth of global oil supplies.

Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, the three biggest OPEC producers, have been forced to cut production amid dwindling crude storage capacity due to a drop in shipping by waterway.

Iran and Israel have launched strikes on key energy facilities amid a widening regional conflict.

Stock futures, traded outside regular market hours, fell sharply on Sunday as investors braced for rising fuel prices.

Futures for Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 were down 1.7 percent, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 1.90 percent.

In Asia, futures for Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 7 percent at the market open.