Brent crude moved up around 1 per cent to northwards of US$92, the highest intraday price since Jun 11, as President Donald Trump said the United States was “not finished” attacking Iran.
The US military said it completed an 11th consecutive night of strikes to “further degrade Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz”.
Trump also said he would “take care of” Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels if they followed through on a threat on Monday to blockade Saudi Arabia’s ports.
“Our view is that we’ll be kind of in this US$80 to US$90 range, depending on the news flow,” said Jay Hatfield at Infrastructure Capital Management said of the oil price.
“If we actually have a closed Red Sea, that’s a threat. We haven’t seen that yet. That could shoot us over US$100,” Hatfield told Bloomberg News.
On currency markets, the Japanese yen was under pressure again after falling below 163 against the dollar late Tuesday, its weakest since 1986, in part due to the oil price.
