{"id":39824,"date":"2026-07-17T10:25:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T08:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=39824"},"modified":"2026-07-17T10:52:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T08:52:32","slug":"oil-rises-on-intensifying-us-iran-hostilities-threat-of-red-sea-closure","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/oil-rises-on-intensifying-us-iran-hostilities-threat-of-red-sea-closure\/","title":{"rendered":"Oil rises on intensifying US, Iran hostilities, threat of Red Sea closure"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Oil prices inched up on Friday after the United States (US) and Iran stepped up attacks across the Gulf, with their broken truce limiting oil flows \u200bout of the Strait of Hormuz and with Tehran asking the Houthi organisation to \u200cstand ready to shut the Red Sea export route.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Brent crude futures rose 7 cents, or about 0.08%, to $84.30 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures gained 16 cents, or 0.2%, to $79.11 a barrel.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Both \u200bbenchmark contracts have climbed nearly 12% this week, with Brent on track for a \u200bthird consecutive weekly gain and WTI on pace for a second weekly gain.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;The \u2060potential threat of the Red Sea becoming another major supply disruption point is further complicating the \u200bglobal oil outlook,&#8221; said Tim Waterer, Chief market analyst at KCM Trade.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>He noted the &#8220;dual-risk scenario&#8221; \u200bwas keeping a geopolitical premium embedded in both benchmarks.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>For the first time since a memorandum of understanding paused fighting last month, the US launched two major waves of air strikes in a single day on Wednesday, mostly \u200bat targets near Iran&#8217;s southern coast. It kept firing on Thursday.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Meanwhile, Qatar&#8217;s defence ministry said its armed \u200bforces thwarted an Iranian missile attack early on Friday, while the interior ministry said a child was injured \u200cby \u2060shrapnel resulting from interception operations.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;Oil security is still a critical issue,&#8221; International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol said on Thursday at a Council on Foreign Relations event in Washington.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":20458,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-39824","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"US and Iran stepped up attacks across the Gulf","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39825,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39824\/revisions\/39825"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=39824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}