Brent Crude Oil Holds Above $100 for Second Day as Middle East Tensions Push Global Prices Higher

[The Financial News] As the war in the Middle East, triggered by airstrikes from the United States of America (U.S.) and Israel, enters its second week with no easing of tensions, international oil prices on the 13th (local time) held above $100 per barrel for a second straight day.
On the day, May delivery Brent Crude Oil futures settled at $103.14 per barrel, up 2.7% from the previous session. This is the highest closing level in about three years and seven months, since late July 2022. April delivery West Texas Intermediate crude oil (WTI) futures also rose 3.1% to $98.71 per barrel.
Brent Crude Oil prices have climbed about 11% so far this week, and are up roughly 42% since the outbreak of war between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, the new supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, declared in his first public message the previous day that Iran would continue to block the Strait of Hormuz and vowed to keep fighting.
Meanwhile, the U.S. moved to ease some sanctions on the Russian Federation (Russia) in an effort to soften the market shock from surging oil prices. The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued a general license allowing the sale of Russian crude oil and petroleum products shipped before 12:01 a.m. on the 12th for a period of 30 days.
Bjarne Schieldrop, an analyst at Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB (SEB), assessed the measure by saying, "It does not increase additional supply to the market, but it does help reduce friction in the trading process."
In a report released the same day, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (Goldman Sachs) projected that Brent Crude Oil would average above $100 per barrel in March, reflecting damage to energy infrastructure in the Middle East and disruptions to logistics in the Strait of Hormuz, and would trade at around $85 in April.
clean@fnnews.com Lee Jeong-hwa Reporter