Oil prices rose above $70 per barrel on Monday, trading at near four-month highs as Washington and Tehran exchanged strike threats after the US killing of an Iranian general raised fears of war in the world’s top hub for crude production.
Brent, the global benchmark for crude, was up 59 cents, or 0.9 per cent, at $69.19 per barrel by 10:40 AM ET (15:40 GMT), as oil traders sent prices of the commodity higher in the aftermath of the drone attack near Baghdad airport on Friday that killed Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ Quds force.
Since Soleimani's killing, Iran has said it was abandoning limits to uranium enrichment, a step required for making nuclear weapons. Iraq’s parliament, meanwhile, wants to expel US forces from the country, prompting President Trump to threaten Baghdad with sanctions. Rockets also fell all over Iraq on Monday, with no human casualties reported. Separately, fighting has also broken out in Libya.
Brent hit a session peak of $70.75 earlier on Monday, responding to all these. The last time it reached those levels was in the aftermath of the mid-September air raid on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities in Abqaiq, an attack the United States had accused Iran of masterminding.
Iran, Iraq and Libya, along with Saudi Arabia, are among the largest oil producers in the Middle East, which accounts for 40 per cent of the world’s crude supply.
