Oil prices have surged to their highest level in nearly two weeks amid escalation on multiple fronts of the US-Israel war on Iran.
Brent crude, the global benchmark, rose more than 3 percent on Monday morning to top $116 a barrel.
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The latest climb took the global benchmark to its highest point since March 19, when it briefly touched $119 a barrel.
The surge came after Iran said it was prepared for a US ground invasion, with the speaker of the country’s parliament warning that Tehran was waiting for the arrival of US troops to “set them on fire” and “punish” their regional allies.
Tehran’s warning came as the conflict deepened over the weekend, with the Iranian-backed Houthis launching missiles at Israel for the first time in the war, and Israel expanding its invasion of southern Lebanon.
Asia’s main stock indexes fell sharply in morning trading, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 and South Korea’s KOSPI both down more than 4 percent as of 1:30 GMT.
Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the US-Israel war has disrupted about one-fifth of global oil and liquified natural gas (LNG) supplies, plunging the world into its biggest energy crisis in decades.
Oil prices have risen nearly 60 percent since the start of the war, driving up fuel prices worldwide and forcing numerous countries to adopt emergency measures to conserve energy.
Analysts have warned that oil prices are likely to keep rising unless maritime traffic returns to normal levels in the strait.
US President Donald Trump has threatened to “obliterate” Iran’s energy infrastructure if Tehran does not relinquish its stranglehold on the waterway by a deadline of April 6.
Trump, who on Thursday extended his deadline by 10 days, has proposed a 15-point plan for ending the war on Iran, and played up the prospect of a breakthrough in indirect talks between the sides, which Pakistan is mediating.
“I do see a deal in Iran, yeah,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One late on Sunday.
“Could be soon.”
Tehran has flatly rejected Trump’s plan and proposed its own terms for a ceasefire, including war reparations and recognition of Iran’s right to control the strait.
Greg Newman, CEO of Onyx Capital Group, which began as an oil derivatives trading house, said energy consumers were only beginning to feel the true fallout of the turmoil.
“Physical oil moves around the world in loading cycles, and Europe has taken around three weeks to really start feeling the effects of the oil shortage,” Newman told Al Jazeera.
“Brent is starting to reflect the reality, and we think it’s a steady rise from here towards $120 and beyond.”
Newman said the scale of the disruption had yet to be fully appreciated.
“No one in the market has ever seen the outages we are now suffering from – physical premiums are the highest ever. There is still a sense that the macro world is not taking this seriously enough, but it is worse than anything that has come before it,” he said.
“The reality will come out in the economic numbers over the coming months.”
While Iran has been allowing a growing number of transits by ships that are not aligned with the US or Israel, traffic remains a fraction of pre-war levels.
On Saturday, Pakistani Minister of Foreign Affairs Ishaq Dar announced that Tehran had agreed to allow 20 Pakistani-flagged vessels to pass the strait in what he described as a “meaningful step toward peace”.
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said last week that Iran had granted Malaysian vessels permission to clear the strait.
Seven non-Iranian vessels passed the strait on Thursday, up from five on Wednesday and four on Tuesday, according to maritime intelligence firm Windward.
Before the start of the war on February 28, the strait saw an average of 120 daily transits, according to Windward.
