Brent crude increased towards $107 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate was close to $102 a barrel.
A US naval blockade of Iran’s ports remains in place, while the waters in the region continue to be treacherous for mariners. A commercial vessel was seized by unauthorized personnel at the entrance to the strait and taken into Iranian waters.
US President Donald Trump met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday, and the two discussed keeping Hormuz open to support energy trade, along with improving American oil flows to the Asian nation, according to a White House official. China’s official readout of the meeting did not include energy among the topics discussed, but it did say the Middle East was addressed.
Trump said “the military decimation of Iran (to be continued!)” in a Truth Social post early Friday. He added that “hopefully our relationship with China will be stronger and better than ever before!”
The war has driven global oil inventories down at a record pace, and the market will remain “severely undersupplied” until October even if hostilities end next month, the International Energy Agency said this week. US data released on Tuesday underscored how the conflict is reigniting inflation, piling domestic pressure on Trump ahead of the midterm elections in November.
A ceasefire has been in place since early April, despite a series of flareups, but Washington and Tehran appear to be making little progress toward resolving their differences. Trump recently said the truce was on “massive life support,” while deriding the Iranian response to his proposal to end the war.
With inputs from Bloomberg
