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,
BP,
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,
+2.06% CL.1,
+2.09% CLF24,
+2.09%
was up 49 cents, or 0.7%, at $71.92 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. -
February Brent crude
BRN00,
+2.12% BRNG24,
+2.12% ,
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.
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