BEIJING: Oil prices rose more than 2 percent on Monday after Iran and the US traded strikes and Israel ordered troops to move further into Lebanon in the battle with the Tehran-backed Hezbollah militant group.
US crude futures rose $2.29 or 2.62 percent to $89.65 a barrel as of 07:36 a.m. Saudi time. Brent futures rose $2.05 or 2.25 percent to $93.17 a barrel.
The stepped-up fighting, coming just after the US hosted Israel-Lebanon peace talks in Washington on Friday, dimmed expectations that the US and Iran could soon announce an extension to their ceasefire agreement, which had driven Brent and WTI to settle down 1.8 percent and 1.7 percent, respectively, on Friday.
The US said on Sunday it conducted “self-defence strikes” on Iranian radar and drone control sites in Iran’s Goruk and Qeshm Island over the weekend in what it said was a response to “aggressive” actions from Tehran.
Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Monday its aerospace force targeted an air base used in what it called a US attack on a telecoms tower on Sirik Island.
