Oil prices top $100 a barrel as Iran warns they could reach $200 amid tanker attacks

HEADLINES

• Oil prices that had come down earlier in the week after US president Donald Trump said the war would soon be over blasted back above $100 a barrel.

• Two tankers were ablaze in Iraqi waters on Thursday, an apparent escalation in Iranian attacks that have cut off Middle East energy supplies.

• An Israeli strike on central Beirut's seafront killed eight people early on Thursday, Lebanon's health ministry said.

• An Italian military base in Iraqi Kurdistan was hit overnight by an airstrike, though no injuries were reported, Italian defense officials said on Thursday.

• Kuwait's electricity ministry says six power transmission lines are out of service after debris from intercepted drones fell on them.

• Saudi Arabia's defense ministry said it intercepted a drone heading toward the Shaybah oilfield, marking the third such incident reported on the same day.

• Any US aggression against Iranian islands in the Gulf will prompt Tehran to "abandon all restraint", Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said on X on Thursday.

• Iran will allow Indian-flagged tankers to transit the Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for 40% of the South Asian nation's crude imports, an Indian government source said, but an Iranian source outside the country denied any such deal was reached.

• Russia and the United States are discussing possible areas of cooperation in the energy sphere, the Kremlin said on Thursday, declining to provide concrete details.

• Citibank will close most of its branches and financial centers in the United Arab Emirates through March 14 as a precautionary measure, following a wave of banks including HSBC sending staff home as the Middle East conflict deepens.

• Foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will hold a special meeting on the situation in the Middle East on Friday, a Philippine foreign ministry official said. 

• Minister of Sport Ahmad Donyamali's statement that Iran could not take part in a World Cup being co-hosted by the United States offered the clearest indication yet of the potential for a first withdrawal from global soccer's showpiece event in the modern era.

Iran sets tankers ablaze

Two tankers were ablaze in Iraqi waters on Thursday, an apparent escalation in Iranian attacks that have cut off Middle East energy supplies, defying US President Donald Trump's claim to have already won the war he launched with Israel nearly two weeks ago.

Images, verified as having been filmed from the shore of the port of Basra, showed the ships engulfed in massive orange fireballs that lit up the night sky.

Iraqi authorities said the vessels had been attacked overnight by Iranian boats laden with explosives. At least one crew member was killed.

Hours earlier, three other ships had been struck in the Gulf. Iran's Revolutionary Guards claimed responsibility for at least one of those attacks, on a Thai bulk carrier that was set ablaze, which the Guards said had disobeyed their orders.

Another container vessel reported being struck by an unknown projectile near the United Arab Emirates on Thursday, a maritime security authority said.

The war, which was launched by the United States and Israel and has so far killed around 2,000 people, has caused the biggest disruption to global energy supplies since the oil shocks of the 1970s.

Oil prices top $100 a barrel

Oil prices – which had come down earlier in the week, after Trump said the war would soon be over – blasted back above $100 a barrel.

Iran has said it would not allow oil through the world's most important energy trade route – the Strait of Hormuz that runs along its coast – until US and Israeli attacks ceased, and it would not conduct any negotiations with Washington.

Thursday's surge in oil prices came despite the announcement the previous day that developed countries would release 400 million barrels of oil from their strategic reserves, nearly half from the United States.

That is by far the biggest-ever coordinated intervention into the oil markets. But it would take months to carry out and account for just three weeks of supply from the blockaded strait.

Iran has made clear over the past two days that its strategy now is to impose a prolonged economic shock on the world to force Trump to back off.

The spokesperson for Iran's military command said on Wednesday that the world should prepare for oil prices of $200 a barrel because of instability caused by the US. That would be well above the highest oil price in history of $147.27 in July 2008, weeks before the start of the global financial crisis.

The war in the Middle East is creating the biggest oil supply disruption in history, the International Energy Agency said on Thursday, a day after it agreed to release a record volume from strategic stockpiles to offset shortages and a spike in prices.

Global supply is expected to drop by 8 million barrels per day in March, the IEA said in its latest monthly oil market report, due to the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow channel along the Iranian coast, since the US and Israel began a campaign of airstrikes on Iran on February 28.