Oil prices held above $110 per barrel on Thursday after a wave of new escalatory attacks by Iran and Israel targeted key energy infrastructure throughout the Gulf, with price action only slightly slowed down by comments from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggesting the US may remove sanctions on Iranian crude.
Futures on Brent crude (BZ=F), the international benchmark, soared through Wednesday night and Thursday morning to briefly cross $119 per barrel for the second time since the war began before settling around $112/bbl, according to Bloomberg data. Those on US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude (CL=F) moved up to hold around $97 per barrel.
Over the past 24 hours, Middle Eastern energy infrastructure has come increasingly under fire, crossing what was previously seen as a red line in the conflict and marking a new height of escalation in the war in Iran.
The newest wave of action began on Wednesday with strikes by Israel on Iran’s South Pars gas field — the Iranian section of the largest natural gas reserve in the world, which the regime shares with Qatar. Axios has reported that the US was aware of Israel’s intent to target the field, though President Trump denied having knowledge of the attack in a Truth Social post.
Following the strikes on South Pars, Iran published a target list of energy infrastructure in the region and ordered evacuations from the sites. In the hours since, the regime has targeted Saudi Arabia’s SAMREF refinery, which is co-owned by Saudi Aramco (2223.SR) and Exxon Mobil (XOM); taken two gas facilities in the UAE offline; and struck two refineries in Kuwait.
The most prominent of those targets, Qatar’s Las Raffan LNG export terminal — the largest in the world — was reported to have received “extensive damage” by QatarEnergy early Thursday morning, adding to damage earlier in the conflict that pushed QatarEnergy to declare force majeure on shipments from the export complex.
In commentary on Thursday, Rystad Energy said that if Iran’s full list of potential targets throughout the Gulf were to come to fruition, oil prices would be very likely to hit $120/bbl — a price point of which Brent crude came within less than $1 overnight.
Prices came slightly off their highs Thursday morning after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told FOX News that the US was considering removing sanctions off Iranian crude oil already on the water. As of late February, Iran had roughly 191 million barrels of oil on the water, according to data from the energy intelligence firm Kpler.
