Oil rebounds after news of US strikes on Iranian military site
By Nicole Jao
NEW YORK, May 28 (Reuters) – Oil prices rose nearly 2 percent early on Thursday after Reuters reported that the United States launched new attacks on an Iranian military facility overnight.
Brent crude futures were up $1.90, or 2.02%, at $96.19 a barrel by GMT, while the more active August contract was up $1.64, or 1.78%, at $93.89 a barrel. The July contract will expire on Friday.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures rose $1.73, or 1.95%, to $90.41.
Both indicators touched one-month lows in the previous session, losing more than 5 percent on the possibility of a US-Iran deal ending their war and reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
The US military has launched new strikes targeting a military site in Iran that officials believe poses a threat to US forces and commercial maritime traffic in the strait, a US official told Reuters.
“Oil supplies remain tight and key sticking points have yet to be resolved,” ANZ commodity strategist Daniel Hynes said in a note.
According to American Petroleum Institute data, crude oil stocks in the United States fell for the sixth consecutive week, falling by 2.8 million barrels last week. [API/S]
Official inventory data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration will be released on Thursday, a day later than usual due to the Memorial Day holiday on Monday. [EIA/S][ENERGYUSA][ENERGYAPI]
(Reporting by Nicole Jao in New York and Florence Tan in Singapore; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Shri Navaratnam)
