Crude futures rose Monday, lifted as attacks on shipping in the Red Sea by Houthi rebels heightened worries about supply disruptions from the Middle East.
Oil major BP PLC
BP,
-2.77%
BP,
+2.25%
on Monday said it would pause all transits through the Red Sea due to worries over worker safety, according to news reports. BP didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Price action
-
West Texas Intermediate crude for January delivery
CL00,
+2.55%CLF24,
+2.55%
was up 49 cents, or 0.7%, at $71.92 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. -
February Brent crude
BRN00,
+2.65%BRNG24,
+2.65%,
the global benchmark, was up 60 cents, or 0.8%, at $77.15 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.
Market drivers
WTI rose 0.3% and Brent gained 0.9% last week, breaking a streak of seven straight weekly declines for both benchmarks, after attacks on ships traveling through the Red Sea by Iran-backed Houthi rebels that control most of Yemen.
Crude prices had risen modestly after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel on fears of a wider conflict, but soon gave up those gains to trade at roughly six-month lows early last week before seeing a modest bounce.
Last week’s Federal Reserve meeting, which saw policy makers signal that rates have likely peaked and reinforced market expectations for a series of rate cuts in 2024, also helped underpin crude, analysts said
“Fundamentally, the dovish-received Fed decision shored up hopes for a soft landing while economic data was mixed but notably not ‘bad enough’ to rekindle hard landing fears,” analysts at Sevens Report Research said in a Monday note.
