Oil ticks higher as Iran’s refusal to meet US envoys dims ceasefire hopes
- Brent and WTI futures rise in early trade.
- Iran to meet mediators rather than US officials.
- US crude inventories fell 6.1m barrels last week.
Oil prices rose in early trade on Wednesday as investors responded to news that Iran will not be meeting with US envoys, a further strain on the interim ceasefire agreed between the two in the four-month-long war.
Brent futures rose 50 cents or 0.69% to $73.45 a barrel at 1208 GMT, while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude climbed 63 cents, or 0.91%, to $70.13 a barrel.
US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Doha for what the White House described as “high-level” talks on Tuesday, but Iran and host Qatar said they would meet with mediators, rather than the Iranians themselves.
Qatar said Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani was among those to Witkoff and Kushner.
Brent fell by around $45 a barrel between the first and second quarters of this year, its largest quarterly loss since 2008 during the financial crisis. US crude futures, meanwhile, fell by around $31, their largest quarterly loss since 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic crushed global oil demand.
The declines followed progress toward ending the Middle East conflict, pulling back from the sharp gains triggered earlier by the hostilities.
Analysts have cut their 2026 oil price forecasts for the first time since the Iran war began, after five straight monthly increases, as the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz eased concerns over prolonged supply disruptions, a Reuters poll showed on Tuesday.
US Vice President JD Vance said Iran would be prevented from charging tolls through the strait, telling The Michael Knowles Show, “This is not going to end in a place where the Iranians are collecting tolls on ships going through the Strait of Hormuz.”
Tanker traffic through the critical waterway has started to recover, with Vance claiming that oil flows through the strait had been restored to pre-war levels.
Meanwhile, US crude oil inventories fell again last week while gasoline stocks also declined, market sources said, citing data from the American Petroleum Institute released on Tuesday.
Crude stocks fell by 6.1 million barrels in the week ended June 26, the sources said on condition of anonymity.
Markets await official US oil stock data from the Energy Information Administration to be released at 10:30am EDT on Wednesday.
