The price of oil has hit its highest point in about a month after the latest escalation of attacks between Iran and the United States on Monday, as the fragile ceasefire between the two nations crumbles.
WTI Crude prices were back up to around $80 per barrel on Tuesday morning, climbing from as low as $68.58 per barrel in early July. The spike in prices comes as hostilities between Iran and the U.S. ramp up as the two countries exchange airstrikes in the Middle East, and the U.S. reinstates its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz following Iran’s attacks on shipping in the waterway. President Donald Trump announced the U.S. would restart its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz again on Monday.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps hit U.S. Gulf allies, including Bahrain, overnight after the U.S. launched retaliatory airstrikes following Iran’s hostile strikes on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend. The Bahrain Defense Force General Command announced in a statement that Iran had fired a series of missile and drone strikes at the country, aimed at civilians, and that Bahrain’s defense successfully thwarted several attacks overnight.
Sirens in Bahrain sounded throughout the early morning hours of July 14 as the Minister of Interior’s office urged citizens and residents “to remain calm and head to the nearest safe place.” The Guard also claimed it attacked a U.S. air base in Jordan as the fighting escalated, according to Reuters.
U.S. Central Command announced late on Monday evening that its forces had successfully completed a five-hour airstrike mission across Iran, marking America’s third consecutive evening of attacks on Iranian targets.
“U.S. forces successfully struck military targets across Iran including Bushehr, Chah Bahar, Jask, Konarak, Abu Musa, and Bandar Abbas to further degrade Iran’s ability to attack commercial shipping,” CENTCOM said in a statement.
“These strikes will continue imposing a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack innocent civilians and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz,” CENTCOM said earlier Monday on the evening’s planned attacks.
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The United Arab Emirates’s Defense Ministry announced Monday that Iran struck two of its tankers in the Strait of Hormuz late in the evening. The ministry said it “reserves its full right to respond to this escalation” in a late Monday statement.
The three nights of airstrikes and continual escalation seem to mark an end to the ceasefire in the war, though the fighting has not reached the levels the U.S. and Iran were at when the war began in late February, until the ceasefire was initially agreed to in April.
