(Bloomberg) — Oil prices plunged following an announcement by US President Donald Trump that the United States is in the \u201cfinal stages\u201d of discussions with Iran. This statement has fueled expectations of an imminent resumption of energy flows through the vital Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures dropped by 5.7%, settling near $98 a barrel. President Trump’s remarks to the White House press pool on Wednesday ignited hopes for a potential agreement between Washington and Tehran. Earlier in the day, prices had experienced significant volatility due to various headlines concerning negotiations to end the ongoing conflict.<\/p>\n
Fawad Razaqzada, a global macro market analyst at StoneX, cautioned against taking such headlines at face value. “One has to take these sorts of headlines with a pinch of salt,” Razaqzada stated. “Trump has made so many claims of this nature during this conflict, and invariably the opposite has been true. Let’s see if this time it is different.”<\/p>\n
The conflict, now in its twelfth week, has severely disrupted shipping traffic through the strait, contributing to a surge in global energy prices and inflation. Despite this, traders have consistently factored in the possibility of a sudden de-escalation, including a potential deal where Iran reopens the crucial shipping lane and releases millions of barrels of oil currently held in the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n
The call skew for both WTI and Brent crude, which reflects the premium traders are willing to pay for options anticipating further price increases, has fallen to its lowest level since before the conflict began.<\/p>\n
Emerging indications of increased traffic through the strait are also reducing the risk premium embedded in crude prices. Over the past few hours, three oil supertankers reportedly attempted to navigate the waterway, marking a slight increase in activity after a recent period of calm. Iran claimed 26 ships transited the strait in the last 24 hours, although its previous reports of transit numbers have often exceeded those indicated by independent ship-tracking data.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Trump stated, “we’ll see what happens” with Iran, further adding that either a deal would be reached or “we’re going to do some things that are a little bit nasty, but hopefully that won’t happen.” The President has consistently threatened to resume military action against Iran if it fails to agree to his proposed peace terms.<\/p>\n
Iran is currently reviewing a new draft proposal from the US, which serves as a response to Tehran’s 14-point plan, and has yet to provide its official reply, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency, citing a source close to Iran’s negotiating team. Earlier on the same day, Iran issued a warning that it would retaliate beyond the Middle East if the US or Israel were to launch another attack.<\/p>\n
#OilPrices #IranUSRelations #StraitOfHormuz #EnergyMarket #CrudeOil #DonaldTrump #Geopolitics #WTI #Brent #PeaceTalks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(Bloomberg) — Oil prices plunged following an announcement by US President Donald Trump that the United States is in the \u201cfinal stages\u201d of discussions with Iran. This statement has fueled expectations of an imminent resumption of energy flows through the vital Strait of Hormuz. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures dropped by 5.7%, settling near […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iran-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}