Israeli and Ukrainian attacks on Tuesday raised oil prices – WN24.cz – World News 24

Oil prices are once again driven by concerns about the escalation of the war in the Middle East and the Ukrainian drone attacks on oil refineries deep in Russian territory. Brent and WTI crude prices rose after recent declines on Tuesday. Their further development will be decided by the following events in both regions. This is reported by Reuters and The Economic Times.

On Monday, Israel struck again against Iran, Ukraine again attacked Russian energy infrastructure. As a result, Brent crude reached $89.08 per barrel on Tuesday, according to Reuters. It crossed the $89 mark for the first time since October.

However, its price fell slightly again shortly afterwards. At around 14:00 CET, it hovered around the $88.5 mark and showed an increase of about 1.3 percent. U.S. WTI crude was trading at less than $85 a barrel (up 1.4 percent) at the same time.

Ukrainians carried out a drone attack on an oil refinery in the Russian city of Nizhnekamsk on Tuesday. It is one of the country’s largest oil refineries, with Russia initially claiming to have repelled a Ukrainian attack, The Economic Times writes.

According to Reuters, an analysis of satellite images shows that Ukraine hit a unit used for primary refining, which represents about half of the refinery’s annual production capacity – that is, about 340,000 barrels of oil per day. The damage does not appear to be serious.

A time of uncertainty

Russia has sufficient reserves of gasoline and diesel, Moscow said. Ukraine has been regularly sending drones against Russian refineries in recent months, just as the Kremlin is starting to have trouble selling cheap oil to third parties due to sanctions.

Israeli fighter jets leveled the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital of Damascus on Monday. Two top Iranian generals and members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards were found dead in the rubble of the building, according to Iranian media.

Tehran blamed the strike on Israel, which as usual did not comment on the operation. Yesterday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi called the attack a violation of international law and promised the Jewish state retaliation. Concerns about the escalation were reflected in oil prices.

Neither Israel nor Palestine are significant, rather negligible, producers of oil. However, Iran is important. If war were to flare up across the region, it could threaten global supplies of the commodity, according to analysts.