- Oil prices edged up about 1% on Wednesday as the market focused more on Middle East supply disruptions than on comments by U.S. President Donald Trump that the war on Iran was close to over, Reuters reported.
Trump told the world to brace for an "amazing two days," as the army chief of mediator Pakistan arrived in Tehran in a bid to prevent renewed conflict.
Brent futures rose $1.14, or 1.2%, to $95.93 a barrel at 12:02 p.m. EDT (1602 GMT), while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude rose $1.19, or 1.3%, to $95.93.
Forty-five days after Iran's Revolutionary Guards declared the strait closed, effectively shutting in about 20% of global oil and LNG shipments, transit through it remains at only a fraction of the 130-plus daily crossings before the war, sources said.
The U.S. has enacted a blockade of shipping leaving Iranian ports that its military said has completely halted trade going in and out of the country by sea.
"Recent tracking data shows a small but increasing number of tankers moving through the Strait of Hormuz, even as overall traffic remains sharply below normal levels," analysts at energy consulting firm Gelber & Associates said.
"The result is a market that is no longer pricing a full-scale outage, but still holding a residual premium as flows recover unevenly rather than snapping back to normal," the Gelber analysts added.
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