Gold prices hit 2-mth low as fresh US-Iran hostilities boost oil, dollar
Investing.com-- Oil prices rose sharply in Asian trade on Thursday after the U.S. and Iran traded air strikes amid rapidly waning hopes that a peace deal was close.
Crude recouped a bulk of its recent losses, following earlier reports that Iran could reopen the Strait of Hormuz in a month.
Brent oil futures for July surged 3.8% to $97.83 a barrel by 00:16 ET (04:16 GMT), while West Texas Intermediate crude futures jumped 4% to $92.26/barrel.
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US, Iran trade strikes; Trump dismisses deal hopes
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard confirmed it had struck a U.S. airbase in Kuwait, in retaliation for American attacks on Bandar Abbas earlier in the day.
Separately, Kuwait said it was defending against missile and drone attacks, but did not specify the source of the attacks.
The attacks marked a resumption in open hostilities between the U.S. and Iran, despite repeated claims by Washington that a ceasefire remained in place.
The U.S. had attacked Iran earlier this week and framed the move as "self defense."
Thursday’s attacks came shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump dismissed reports that Iran will reopen commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz within a month.
Trump later signaled that he was not yet satisfied with a peace deal with Iran.
Crude prices had fallen sharply on Wednesday, and were also nursing deep losses this week amid bets that a U.S.-Iran peace deal was close.
But Trump’s comments on Wednesday indicated that a deal was not as close as markets had been pricing in over the past week.
While U.S. officials did offer some optimistic comments on negotiations with Iran over the past week, both sides still remained at odds over Tehran’s nuclear activities and the Strait of Hormuz.
Reports over the past week showed a steady trickle of ships passing through Hormuz. But flows still remained at a fraction of pre-war levels, with Hormuz’s closure continuing to disrupt about a fifth of global oil supplies.
Trump also rejected the notion of Iran and Oman jointly controlling Hormuz, stating that no single country could control the channel.