(New York) Oil prices rose Thursday after new US strikes against the Houthis in Yemen and after reciprocal attacks between Iran and Pakistan.
The price of a barrel of Brent from the North Sea, for delivery in March, gained 1.56% to $79.10.
Its American equivalent, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), for delivery in February, advanced 2.09% to $74.08.
“The oil market completely ignored the statistics on US oil inventories and focused mainly on tensions between Iran and Pakistan,” commented Andy Lipow of Lipow Oil Associates.
If weekly reserves of American crude oil fell more than expected to 2.5 million barrels, those of gasoline increased more than expected to 3.1 million barrels, which should have pushed prices down.
But on Thursday, Pakistan announced that it had carried out overnight “strikes against terrorist hideouts” in Iran, which left nine people dead according to Iranian state media, two days after an Iranian attack on Pakistani territory.
These reciprocal attacks come at a time when the Middle East is shaken by the war between the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip and attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, supported by Iran, against commercial ships. in the Red Sea.
“This comes on top of continued missile and drone attacks in the Red Sea, which is causing shipping companies to reroute their tankers to take longer routes via the Cape of Good Hope,” Lipow said.
The American army targeted the Houthis on their territory in Yemen for the fourth time in less than a week, with, during the night from Wednesday to Thursday, ground strikes on 14 missiles of the pro-Iran rebels who have been taking away maritime traffic for weeks.
Off the coast of Yemen, in the Red Sea and in the Gulf of Aden, these rebels, at war for almost a decade against the Yemeni government, target merchant ships they consider linked to Israel.
“There is an increasing probability of oil supply disruption if these regional tensions increase further,” said Andy Lipow.