Oil prices touch $100 again as Iran ramps up shipping attacks in the Persian Gulf

Oil prices pared gains on Thursday after Brent crude briefly touched $100 a barrel, as attacks were reported on three more cargo ships in the Persian Gulf and traders reacted to the IEA’s move to release government stockpiles.

International benchmark Brent crude futures with May delivery traded 6.8% higher at $98.19 per barrel at around 9:25 a.m. London time (5:25 a.m. ET), while U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures with April delivery rose 6.4% to $92.85.

Three foreign ships were struck off the coast of Iraq and the United Arab Emirates overnight, authorities said, the latest in a flurry of incidents in or near the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz.

One container ship was struck by an unknown projectile near the port city of Jebel Ali on Thursday, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) center, while two oil tankers were left ablaze in Iraqi waters after having been struck near the port of Umm Qasr, near the city of Basra.

The reports come shortly after the IEA announced its largest emergency release of crude reserves in history.

“The key question is, why is the market rallying despite this large release? First, there are no signs of de-escalation in the Persian Gulf, so there is no end in sight to the disruptions to oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz,” strategists at Dutch bank ING said in a research note published Thursday.

“As we have said repeatedly, the only way to see oil prices trade lower on a sustained basis is by getting oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz. Failing to do so means that the market highs are still ahead of us,” they added.

The IEA said Wednesday that its 32 member countries would release 400 million barrels of oil from emergency reserves, marking the biggest coordinated drawdown since the agency was created in the aftermath of the 1973 oil embargo.

The United States announced that it would release 172 million barrels from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve, with Energy Secretary Chris Wright saying shipments could begin next week and take roughly 120 days to complete.

The oil market has shrugged off those announcements as prices continue to rise, highlighting traders’ skepticism that the measures could bridge the supply gap, if flows through the Strait of Hormuz remain disrupted.

“Prices right now are still in panic mode. There is a lot of emotion, fear, uncertainty built into the price that we see,” said Pavel Molchanov, senior investment strategist at Raymond James.

The record IEA strategic stock release will add some much-needed volumes to the market, albeit only closing up to a quarter of the 20 million barrels per day supply gap posed by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, said Saul Kavonic, energy analyst at MST Marquee.

“But the IEA decision also signals how acute the oil shortage risk is, suggesting the IEA does not believe the war is [likely] to end soon, and stock draws now will need to be replaced later, portending higher prices even after the war ends,” he told CNBC.

Roughly a fifth of global oil supply passes through the Strait of Hormuz, which links the Persian Gulf to global markets. 

One key reason markets remain uneasy is uncertainty about how quickly the barrels will reach the market, said industry veterans.

While the IEA’s announcement marked an unprecedented intervention, the agency did not provide details on how fast individual countries will release their reserves or how the oil will be distributed.

“That’s one of the key question marks, which is how long will it take for the 400 million barrels to be physically delivered onto the market,” said Molchanov.

“Four hundred million is a big number … but this is the largest oil supply disruption since at least the 1970s so we need a lot of oil, and we need it quickly,” he said.

Strategic stockpiles are held separately by each IEA member country, meaning technical and logistical constraints could slow the flow of barrels.

Molchanov estimated it could take 60 to 90 days before the oil meaningfully reaches the market, longer than traders had hoped for immediate relief.