Oil markets recorded their sharpest price rise in nearly two months after a series of attacks on fossil fuel tankers near the Strait of Hormuz led Donald Trump to declare that the ceasefire deal with Iran was over. Brent crude, the global benchmark, jumped by nearly 6% on Wednesday to more than $80 a barrel, the highest price since the US and Iran agreed the ceasefire while negotiating an end to the war last month.
Impact on UK bonds and stock markets
At the same time, UK short-dated bonds suffered their worst day since the end of March as the prospect grew of a Bank of England rate rise to cope with renewed inflationary pressures. The yield on two-year gilts rose 15 basis points to 4.35%, with a rate rise in November fully priced in and a 50% chance of another in December. The market had given a 75% chance to one rate increase by the end of the year earlier this week.
The FTSE 100 suffered its biggest one-day fall since May, down nearly 1.7% at 10,489, on concerns about the impact of the latest increase in tensions on the global economy. However, BP rose 3.5% and Shell gained 2.2%, both bucking the trend as the oil price increased.
Attacks and disruption to tanker traffic
The fragile ceasefire appeared to disintegrate after Iran launched attacks on at least three tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours, including a vessel carrying about 8 million cubic feet of liquefied natural gas, which is considered the cargo most at risk of exploding. At least four oil and gas tankers have turned back from trying to transit the strait, according to ship-tracking data, hampering efforts to normalise flows through the vital trade route after months of disruption.
Jorge León, head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy, said: “Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has essentially stopped, which tells you more about risk perception right now than any statement from Washington or Tehran.” He added that the “real test” will come after the burial ceremony of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei later this week, once the US and Iran “show whether there is still an appetite for a diplomatic off-ramp”.
Previous price declines and current surge
Global oil prices had previously fallen from highs of more than $110 a barrel in late May after more tankers were able to transit the strait amid hopes that US-Iran talks would bring an end to the war, which had disrupted flows of about 20 million barrels of oil a day from Gulf producers. The current surge marks a sharp reversal.
Impact on European gas markets
In Europe, the collapse of the ceasefire reignited a 5% increase in gas market prices. The benchmark Dutch contract increased by more than €2.40 to €49 per megawatt hour (MWh), while the UK equivalent rose by 6p to 116.75p per therm. The return of rising energy prices risks increasing household costs, which have already faced the steepest rise in summer energy bills in four years. If sustained, higher market costs could mean rising gas and electricity prices in the winter as well as higher prices at the pump.
Luke Bosdet, a spokesperson for the AA motoring group, said: “This is news UK drivers didn’t want to hear ahead of the summer getaway later in the month. The ending of the ceasefire is ominous for UK pump prices but not all is lost. For starters, a feature of the US-Iran war has been highly volatile oil prices that have fed through to the pump. However, the sharp fall in petrol and diesel prices has by and large tracked the more recent fall in wholesale costs and come through to the pump far more quickly than would have been expected previously.”
Market resilience and future outlook
Market analysts have stopped short of forecasting a return to oil prices of more than $100 a barrel, after finding that the global market was more resilient to disruption than initially feared. Tamas Varga, an analyst at PVM Oil Associates, said: “Nothing can be ruled out. But the market’s admirable adaptability in weathering the original crisis, and the $56 decline in the price of Brent during May and June, must be kept in mind when revising oil price forecasts.”
The market initially expected a 20 million barrel per day loss to global crude supplies as a result of the effective blockade on the Strait of Hormuz from March this year. However, Gulf producers have been able to use alternative supply routes and clandestine vessel crossings to reduce the net loss to 12.2 million barrels per day. Meanwhile, higher production from unaffected producers, the release of emergency crude stocks, and US sanctions waivers covering Russian and Iranian oil in floating storage added a further 9.1 million barrels of supply. “The conclusion is that the effective loss from the original 20 million barrels a day was only 3.1 million,” Varga added.
