Global Oil Prices Rise Amid Increasing Middle East Conflict

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New Delhi: The ongoing tensions in the Middle east and West Asian region has led to increasing impact on global economies resulting which the price of crude oil saw a considerable surge on Friday. Fuel prices climbed up by 4 percent. The crude shipments could be disrupted due to the geopolitical tensions amid reports of Israel launching a missile attack on Iran, news agency IANS has reported.

The Brent crude benchmark climbed to approximately 90 dollars per barrel while U.S. West Texas Intermediate lingered at roughly 85 dollars per barrel. This followed a drop in the price of Brent crude to about 87 dollars per barrel on Wednesday which is attributed to increased U.S. inventories and diminished Chinese demand amidst an economic slowdown. ()

India imports over 85 per cent of its crude oil requirement and a substantial spike in global oil prices could raise the country’s oil import bill, IANS has reported. The raise in import bill would weaken the currency due to the increased outflow of foreign cash. ()

Russia has helped India to decrease its oil import cost by the cheaper purchase of oil from the country by 16 percent to $132.4 billion for fiscal year 2023-24, it has been down by  $157.5 from the previous year.

In its fresh attack round, the Israeli missiles have hit a site in Iran, as per the US media reports on Friday. The attack is said to be in retaliation to the Iranian drone attacks done earlier on Israel. However, Iran has denied all the reports of the attack. Iran claims that the explosions heard were from the firing of its air defence systems.