Oil prices fall 4% to seven-week low as Iran and Israel halt attacks
- Brent futures fall $3.40, or 3.6%, to $90.85 a barrel at 10:28am EDT (1428 GMT)
Oil prices fell about 4% after Iran and Israel halted attacks following a U.S. appeal, easing Middle East tensions. China's slumping oil imports also contributed to the decline.
- De-escalation of hostilities between Iran and Israel.
- Impact of China's slumping crude oil imports.
- Anticipated U.S. oil supply and storage reports.
NEW YORK: Oil prices fell about 4% on Tuesday after Iran and Israel said they had halted attacks on each other following an appeal from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Brent futures fell $3.40, or 3.6%, to $90.85 a barrel at 10:28 a.m. EDT (1428 GMT), while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude slid $3.71, or 4.1%, to $87.59.
That put Brent on track for its lowest close since April 17 and WTI on track for its lowest close since May 29.
Israel and Iran halted direct attacks on each other on Monday after an appeal by Trump for them to stop, but Tehran said it would resume hostilities if Israel continued to attack its ally, the Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Iran, however, has so far held back from attacking even after Israel struck the historic port city of Tyre in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, killing at least eight people.
“The oil market is drafting lower … as the latest shooting match between Israel and Iran was diffused in favor of a ceasefire and as Trump continues to talk the market lower by suggesting that an end of the war with Iran could be reached in 2-3 days with negotiations in their final stages,” analysts at energy advisory firm Ritterbusch and Associates said in a note.
Iran has continued to block most shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which before the war carried a fifth of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas. Washington has imposed its own blockade of Iranian ports.
Elsewhere around the world, China’s May crude imports slumped 29% to their lowest levels in eight years, extending a sharp decline in the world’s largest oil importer that is helping keep a lid on global oil prices.
World supply, demand and inventories
The oil market awaited global oil supply and demand data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday and weekly storage reports from the American Petroleum Institute (API) trade group later on Tuesday.
Analysts estimated energy firms pulled 3.4 million barrels of crude from U.S. storage during the week ended June 5.
If correct, that would be the first time energy firms pulled crude out of storage for seven weeks in a row since January 2025. It compares with a decrease of 3.6 million barrels in the same week last year and an average decline of 0.7 million barrels over the past five years (2021 to 2025).
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