Oil prices had initially spiked up after there were concerns when Iran fired rockets at military bases in Iraq. But as on Wednesday, the oil prices calmed down. Experts are saying that the oil prices are highly vulnerable right now due to the ongoing confrontation between Iran and the US.
Stock prices of crude oil had fallen by a fair margin but seemed to climb up gradually after Donald Trumpairstrikes the US President and Iran’s foreign minister signalled a period of calmness for now.
The prices of Brent Crude futures had gone up by 97 cents to 1.4% and finished at $69.24 after it had initially risen to $71.75 which was the highest since mid-September 2019.
Another benchmark the West Teas Intermediate crude futures went up to 82 cents which is roughly a growth of 1.3%. The prices per barrel stand at $63.52. Earlier during the day, it reached a high of $63.52 per barrel which was the highest rise since April last year.
Abid Ali, Al Jazeera’s economics coordinator told that the airstrikes by Iran on US targets in Iraq had sent the crude oil market into highly volatile and the prices went up.
Experts expected the Us markets to open on Wednesday on 1.7% down but the crude futures market brought stability due to US President Donald Trump’s tweet that ‘all is well’.
Iran had launched a scathing attack on US coalition forces in Iraq saying that it had fired nearly half a dozen missiles from Iranian territory. The attack was done by Iran to retaliate against the killing of Iran’s one of the most prolific military commander Qassem Soleimani. According to the US, he was considered to be a terrorist.
The attention of experts all around the world immediately turned to Straits of Hormuz in Iran from where roughly 34 million barrels of crude oil is shipped to the US every month.
