Crude Oil Market Remains Dangerous, War Conflict Is Becoming More Real!

<p>Oil prices rose slightly on Monday after recovering from a sharp fall last week.</p><p><br /></p><p>Crude oil markets continued to be volatile after the US vowed to launch further attacks on the Iran-backed Houthi group in the Middle East and a Ukrainian drone strike on Russia's largest oil refinery.</p><p><br /></p><p>Brent crude rose 36 cents (0.5%) to $77.69 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) rose 25 cents (0.4%) to $72.53 a barrel.</p><p><br /></p><p>Both benchmarks are down about 7% over the past week. While US jobs data was published last Friday which was stronger than market expectations, oil prices for both declined by 2%.</p><p><br /></p><p>In addition, the expectation of interest rate cuts in the US and the war conflict between Israel and Hamas remained consistent throughout the week as the main cause of price fluctuations.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Now, investors remain wary of any escalation in the Middle East conflict after the US signaled a retaliatory strike against the Hezbollah group in Jordan.</p><p><br /></p><p>They also persisted in continuing their campaign against the Houthi group in Yemen with 36 attacks reported last Saturday due to the blockade of commercial ships sailing in the Red Sea.</p><p><br /></p><p>Last week, the US Department of Justice announced sanctions on evasion and expropriation charges linked to an oil smuggling ring that allegedly funded Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.</p><p><br /></p><p>They seized more than 520,000 barrels of Iranian oil on the crude oil tanker Abyss that was on its way to China.</p><p><br /></p><p>In addition, Iran aims to sell 1.35 million barrels of oil per day starting in March. It is 1.3% of the global crude oil supply which is 103.5 million barrels per day based on data by the International Energy Agency.</p>