This photo taken on March 26, 2026 shows an oil tanker unloading crude oil at a port in Yantai, eastern China’s Shandong province.
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Oil prices rose Thursday as the market realized Iran still controlled access to the Strait of Hormuz despite a two-week ceasefire agreement with the United States.
WE Brut West Texas Intermediate Futures for May rose more than 3% to $97.97 a barrel as of 12:16 p.m. ET. International reference Brent crude futures for June delivery added more than 1% to $95.94
U.S. oil jumped above $100 earlier in the session, but retreated after Prime Minister Benjamin Nentanyahu said Israel would negotiate with Lebanon “as soon as possible.”
The moves come a day after U.S. oil recorded its biggest one-day drop since 2020 due to the ceasefire. Israeli strikes in Lebanon threatened to undermine the fragile agreement between the United States and Iran.
The strait is not open to maritime traffic because Iran restricts access despite the ceasefire, the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) said on Thursday.
Tehran has made it clear that ships must obtain its permission to pass through the strait, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber said in a statement. social media post. “It’s not freedom of navigation. It’s coercion,” the ADNOC chief said.
The ceasefire is fragile as the United States and Iran dispute the terms of the agreement. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian Parliament, said on Wednesday that Washington had violated the agreement.
“The deep historical distrust we hold toward the United States stems from its repeated violations of all forms of commitments – a pattern that has unfortunately repeated itself once again,” Ghalibaf said in a statement. posted on social networks.
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Oil prices since the beginning of the year
Ghalibaf said three elements of Iran’s 10-point truce proposal had been violated: ongoing Israeli strikes in Lebanon, a drone entering Iranian airspace and what he described as the denial of Tehran’s right to enrich uranium.
US President Donald Trump told the United States on Tuesday that the Iranian proposal could serve as a basis for negotiations. Vice President JD Vance responded to the allegations during a trip to Hungary on Wednesday.
“Ceasefires are always complicated,” Vance said, regarding the reported drone incident in Iranian airspace. He added that Washington maintains Iran should not be allowed to enrich uranium and said no ceasefire covering Lebanon had been included in the deal.
