Benchmark Brent crude futures rose past $100 a barrel on Wednesday, breaching the level for the first time since 24 July, as the widening conflict in the Middle East deepened concern over oil flows out of the region.

Brent was up $2.15, or 2.2 per cent, at $100.07 a barrel by 07:21 GMT. US West Texas Intermediate rose $1.70, or 1.83 per cent, to $94.73, the Daily Mirror reported carrying Reuters copy. Hiru News carried the same figures, attributed to Al Jazeera.

Brent has risen by roughly a quarter since early last month as expectations of a durable settlement to the six-month-old US–Iran conflict have receded.

The Red Sea is now exposed too

The immediate trigger was this week’s Iran-backed Houthi attacks on Saudi energy facilities, which set oil installations ablaze and raised the prospect of a significant widening of the war.

That matters beyond the damage itself. The Red Sea has served as the main alternative route for crude while flows through the Strait of Hormuz have been severely curtailed since the war began on 28 February. Houthi capacity to threaten Red Sea shipping puts pressure on both corridors at once, rather than diverting traffic from one to the other.

Hormuz traffic has been volatile. In the week before fighting resumed on 30 August, roughly 8 million to 9 million barrels per day moved through the strait — double the previous week’s volume — according to Rystad Energy.

A growing number of banks, including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and HSBC, have raised their crude price forecasts in recent days.

Where this sits against the past week

The $100 mark has been approached repeatedly without being crossed. Brent stood at $96 a week ago, when Goldman Sachs put a $120 scenario on the table. It was quoted at $99.41 on Tuesday, in the hours after US forces struck five Iranian tankers and Tehran fired on a US base in Jordan — within 60 cents of the barrier it has now passed.

The Houthi campaign against Saudi targets was already under way before this week’s strikes on energy infrastructure; the group attacked four Saudi cities on Monday.

Update (September 10): another 4 per cent, and WTI crosses $100 too

The rally extended sharply the following day. Brent climbed a further 4.25 per cent — $4.30 — to $105.51 a barrel, while WTI gained 4.24 per cent, or $4.07, to $100.12, Hiru News reported citing Bloomberg.

Two things are worth separating out. Brent has now added roughly $5.50 in a single session on top of Wednesday’s breach of $100 — a larger one-day move, in both dollar and percentage terms, than the one that carried it through the barrier. And WTI has crossed $100 as well, having stood at $94.73 a day earlier; the US benchmark had not been part of the story when Brent first breached the mark.

Hiru attributes the move to fresh supply risk from Middle East tensions but does not identify a specific new trigger. The move fed straight into Colombo, where the ASPI fell for a third consecutive session on Thursday, closing at 21,357.74.

Update (September 12): Trump names the target and points at Iran

The facility question has now been answered, and the attribution has shifted.

Asked at a news conference in Dublin whether Iran was responsible for the attack on Saudi Arabia’s East–West oil pipeline, US President Donald Trump replied: “probably, they are,” Hiru News reported, citing Al Jazeera.

That is a material change. Coverage through the week attributed the strikes on Saudi energy infrastructure to the Houthis; Trump puts them on Iran directly. He did not offer evidence, and the qualifier is his own.

He also described the Houthis as being in contact with Washington. “They don’t wait to fight us; they let us know,” he said. “They would much prefer not having us involved, and they’re letting most ships go through. There’s just one country that they’re not too happy with, and we’ll get that straightened out.”

That last remark supports the reading that the Red Sea campaign is aimed at Saudi shipping specifically rather than being a general closure of the route — consistent with traffic through Bab el-Mandeb running near normal even as Saudi-linked vessels are targeted.

Trump called Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a “good friend” and said “everything will work out fine.”

The East–West pipeline is the kingdom’s overland route from the Eastern Province oilfields to the Red Sea terminal at Yanbu — the corridor that exists precisely to move crude to market without passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Damage to it narrows both of Saudi Arabia’s export options at once.

Not reported

No report estimates the volume of production affected by the pipeline strike, gives the banks’ revised price forecasts, names the Red Sea shipping lanes at risk, or quotes Saudi Aramco or the Saudi energy ministry. Trump’s attribution to Iran is unaccompanied by evidence and no Iranian, Houthi or Saudi response is reported. There is no assessment of the effect on Sri Lanka’s fuel import bill, though the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation said on 12 September it has no immediate plan to raise pump prices.

Sources