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Escalating U.S.-Iran tensions lift expectations for higher oil prices
Chinese crude purchases fell 41.0% year-on-year in June to 7.12 million barrels per day, the lowest monthly level since October 2016, even as Middle East supply risks intensified.
Escalating U.S.-Iran hostilities, attacks on critical infrastructure, and near-halted shipping through the Hormuz Strait are boosting expectations that oil prices will keep rising in the days ahead, according to OilPrice.
The outlet cited reports that U.S. forces struck civilian infrastructure in Iran, while Tehran attacked a Kuwaiti power and desalination plant, alongside repeated tanker attacks in the Hormuz Strait and the risk that maritime warfare could spread toward the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
OilPrice also pointed to demand and logistics pressures, noting that China’s crude purchases plunged 41.0% year-on-year in June to 7.12 million barrels per day, the lowest monthly reading since October 2016.
The article added that the U.S. redirected two commercial vessels after reinstating its naval blockade of Iranian ports, and that Iraq briefly suspended crude loadings at Basra after a suspected drone approach, before operations later resumed without reported damage.
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