Crude oil futures traded higher on Tuesday morning following escalating hostilities in West Asia and threats to crude oil supplies via the Strait of Hormuz.
At 9.29 am on Tuesday, May Brent oil futures were at $79.45, up by 2.20 per cent, and April crude oil futures on WTI (West Texas Intermediate) were at $72.41, up by 1.66 per cent.
In their Commodities Feed for Tuesday, Warren Patterson, Head of Commodities Strategy of ING Think, and Ewa Manthey, Commodities Strategist, said the oil market pared some of its initial gains on Monday, with Brent settling 7.26 per cent higher on the day after initially trading as much as 13.6 per cent higher.
The market continues to digest the risk of escalation in West Asia.
“While there are concerns about oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, a greater risk to the market would be Iran targeting additional energy infrastructure in the region. This could lead to more prolonged outages,” they said.
Oil price movements have been fairly modest, given the amount of supply at risk and uncertainty about how long disruptions could persist.
They said the market had already been pricing in a fairly large risk premium in the lead-up to these attacks. Also, the market appears to be pricing in a relatively short-lived disruption to oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, which the large surplus markets expect this year should be able to absorb.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the US will announce plans on Tuesday to mitigate higher energy costs.
At the same time, though, there have been reports that the US has no immediate plan to release oil from its strategic petroleum reserve. The longer West Asia disruptions last, the more likely we are to see coordinated emergency releases from several countries, they said.
In a post on the social media platform Truth Social, US President Donald Trump said: “The Radical Left Democrats, a Party that has completely lost its way, are complaining bitterly about the very necessary and important attack, by the United States and Israel, on Iran. What most people understand is that they are only complaining BECAUSE I DID IT and, if I didn’t do it, they would be screaming — Why didn’t “TRUMP” attack Iran, he should do it, IMMEDIATELY? There’s nothing surprising about this!”
Published on March 3, 2026