A drone crashed into an oil tanker at Iraq’s Basra terminal on Thursday, and crude flows were suspended at all of the country’s loading terminals. Despite the disruption, WTI held its retreat from the $80 mark, while Brent slipped as Trump backed away from a Strait of Hormuz plan.
Iraq suspended crude flows at all its oil loading terminals after a drone crashed into a tanker at the Basra terminal on Thursday, Reuters reported, citing four Iraqi oil and security sources. The incident caused no damage or fire, the sources said.
Even so, WTI held its retreat from the $80 mark, trading 0.96% lower on the day at $79 as the oil benchmark shrugged off the supply headlines.
Brent fell as well, with the front-month ICE contract down $0.44/bbl to $84.24 at 09.00 GMT. The pressure came after President Donald Trump abandoned a plan to charge a 20% fee on a cargo’s value for US help transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump now aims to secure trade deals with Gulf states instead. The US administration has stayed silent on the specifics of that trade and investment framework Trump says those nations will adopt with Washington.
Working against the decline, the US Energy Information Administration reported a drop in domestic crude stocks. Commercial US crude oil inventories fell by 1.7 million bbls to 409.7 million bbls in the week ending 10 July, according to EIA data.
A drop in US crude stocks can indicate higher demand for oil and put some upward pressure on Brent’s price. Two ING Bank analysts noted that US commercial crude inventories remain near their lowest levels since 2022, and seasonally their lowest since 2018.
Sources: FXStreet (Reuters), engine.online
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