Brent Crude

Oil prices have surged due to renewed concerns about the Middle East conflict. Brent crude futures increased by 0.32% to 90.80 USD per barrel, while American WTI crude rose by 0.3% to 86.50 USD per barrel. This comes amid fears of an Iranian strike on Israel following verbal threats by Iran in response to an Israeli attack on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria.

In the oil market, the upward trend continues at the beginning of the new week, with prices rising to nearly 5-month highs due to increasing geopolitical risks related to supply disruptions. This surge is driven by a series of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries, reported by Reuters.  

Oil prices fell nearly 1 percent in early European trade, erasing yesterday's gains on concerns about the viability of the bipartisan US debt ceiling deal and mixed messages from top oil producers ahead of the OPEC+ meeting later in the week.

Oil prices continued to fall during trading on Thursday, hitting three-week lows on concerns that rising interest rates policies by leading central banks could limit global economic growth and fuel consumption going forward.

At the same time, the dollar has appreciated in the foreign exchange market, with its strengthening making oil more expensive for buyers in other currencies.

Oil fell in early European trading by nearly 2% amid fears of a global economic slowdown and even the risk of an impending recession, which would worsen the outlook for demand for the important energy raw material.

Oil futures fell more than 5% on Wednesday to more than 5% against one-month price lows amid growing fears that the Fed's and other central banks' interest rate-raising policies in a bid to fight record inflation will slow economic growth and it even risks provoking a recession, which in turn reduces the demand for important energy raw materials.

Brent oil price dived below $30 per barrel on April 14 with rising oversupply in the global market due to low oil consumption around the world.

Price of the international benchmark hit $29.85 a barrel at 1548GMT for a daily loss of 5.95% after closing Monday at $31.74 per barrel.

The low oil price environment in the global market is dragging the Middle Eastern oil-producing countries to collapse, whose economies are strongly dependent on crude oil production and exports.

Oil prices plummeted around 30 percent on March 9 after Saudi Arabia slashed its official selling prices and set plans for a dramatic increase in crude production next month, starting a price war even as spread of the coronavirus erodes global demand growth.

The coronavirus epidemic has pushed the price of Brent crude on March 2 to its lowest in 31 months and on the same week that investors await the critical OPEC meeting that will be held in Vienna, Austria on March 5.

International benchmark Brent crude fell as low as $48.40 per barrel on March 2 to mark its lowest level since July 24, 2017, according to official data.