Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
Brent futures surged by more than 4 percent in busy trading on Friday after the United States airstrike ordered by President Donald Trump killed a top Iranian general in Iraq, Qassem Soleimani.
As at the time of this report, Business Post gathered that Brent Crude was trading close to $70 per barrel at $69.35 after rising by 4.68 percent equivalent to $3.10.
This is the highest level reached since the attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities in mid- September. An airstrike which happened near the Baghdad airport killed Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian general who heads the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds force.
Tensions had been building between the United States and Iran after an Iran-backed Iraqi militia stormed the American embassy in Baghdad to protest deadly U.S. airstrikes on Tuesday.
Analysts believe that with the attack on Soleimani, fears of conflict in the world’s most important crude-producing region, the Middle East, will increase.
It is also believed that Iran’s response will be extreme following comment from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who vowed that “severe retaliation” awaits the killers of Soleimani. This development will certainly take a toll on the global market in the next few days.
Also pushed higher by the military action, the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude moved up 4.51 percent or to $3.10 to trade at $63.94 per barrel.
Rise in prices have already been pushed up by the ease in the trade war between the US and China following a signing scheduled for January 15 and also expected drop in crude inventories.
