Crude oil climbed to about $96.70 a barrel on Wednesday—its highest level since May—driven by escalating tensions between the United States and Iran. US officials said Iran attempted to attack Navy vessels on Monday, following a weekend barrage in which Iranian forces targeted an aircraft carrier with ballistic missiles in a previously undisclosed wave of assaults. Iranian state media, meanwhile, reported that a US missile struck a small oil tanker roughly four miles off Kharg Island on Tuesday.
The conflict widened this week after Iran-backed Houthi militants launched strikes on several energy facilities in Saudi Arabia, prompting a temporary shutdown of some operations. These developments followed US military action on Saturday, when American forces hit three Iranian oil tankers in retaliation for Iran’s ballistic missile attacks on two US Navy warships.
Price pressures were further amplified by a decline in US crude inventories, which fell by 0.3 million barrels last week. In addition, Ukrainian drones struck infrastructure in Novorossiysk—Russia’s key Black Sea oil terminal—on Wednesday, adding another layer of risk to global supply.
