Oil prices stabilised on Monday 29 June after the United States and Iran reached an agreement to halt their renewed hostilities in the Gulf and committed to resuming negotiations over the Strait of Hormuz.
The announcement followed several days of retaliatory strikes in the region, a brief pause and subsequent fresh attacks. It also coincided with a resumption of oil and liquefied natural gas loading activities by Middle East producers, despite continued ship attacks.
By 08:03 GMT, Brent crude futures had edged up US$0.04 to US$72.03 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate crude rose US$0.44, or 0.6 per cent, to US$69.67 a barrel, according to Reuters.
Last week, Brent crude registered a 10.6 per cent fall, its third consecutive weekly decline.
That decrease had followed a period during which crude shipments through the Strait of Hormuz surged to their highest levels since the outbreak of the US-Israeli conflict with Iran in late February.
Earlier in the day, oil prices had risen following a slowdown in shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz after attacks on vessels that began on Thursday last week.
One of the incidents involved an oil tanker linked to Qatar.
These incidents set off a new round of strikes involving both the US and Iran, marking the most significant escalation since the two nations signed an interim peace agreement.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s Aramco resumed crude loadings on Friday 26 June at its Ras Tanura terminal on the Gulf, after a near four-month pause, Reuters reported.
Shipping data indicated that crude was loaded onto two very large crude carriers controlled by Bahri, Saudi Arabia’s shipping arm.
A third vessel was en route, and a fourth was waiting nearby.
Each of these carriers can hold up to two million barrels of oil.
The Ras Tanura terminal, located west of the Strait of Hormuz, had previously exported more than five million barrels per day before the conflict began.
The adjoining 550,000-barrel-per-day refinery, the country’s largest, had also been shut as a precaution during the fighting.
In addition, the UK’s maritime security agency said that a tanker was hit by a projectile in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, according to Reuters.
Both the US and Iran have accused each other of breaching the interim peace deal that was reached two weeks earlier.
US officials claimed to have targeted Iranian sites overnight, while Iran said it responded on Saturday by launching strikes on sites linked to US forces.
The escalation has drawn renewed attention to the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of global oil and LNG once transited before the recent disruptions began.
With loadings now resuming at key terminals and both sides signalling a willingness to return to the negotiating table, traders will be watching closely for signs of whether the fragile calm can hold, or whether further disruption along one of the world’s most critical energy corridors is still to come.
