Reports Kuwait was cutting output pushed up cost of barrel of Brent crude to highest weekly gain since Covid pandemic began
The Iran conflict has driven the oil price past $90 a barrel to its highest weekly gains since the Covid-19 pandemic six years ago, threatening a fresh rise in global inflation.
Reports that Kuwait had begun cutting production of oil at some fields after running out of space to store it drove the cost of a barrel of Brent crude to as high as $91.89 at one point on Friday – its highest since April 2024 and up from about $72.50 just before war broke out.
The price of the international benchmark has surged by more than 25% since the US-Israel attack on Iran last weekend, its biggest weekly jump since the week to 3 April 2020.
Fears are now growing over a broader storage crisis in the Middle East that could force the world’s biggest oil producers to halt extraction.
