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By Ahmad Ghaddar
LONDON, April 13 (Reuters) – Oil prices jumped back above $102 a barrel on Monday as the U.S. Navy prepared to block ships to and from Iran https://www.reuters.com/world/iran/ via the Strait of Hormuz in a move that could restrict Iranian oil exports after Washington and Tehran failed to reach a deal to end the war.
Brent crude futures gained $7.32, or 7.7%, to $102.52 a barrel by 1215 GMT after settling 0.75% down on Friday. U.S. West Texas Intermediate was up $7.65, or 7.9%, at $104.22 after a 1.33% loss in the previous session.
President Donald Trump https://www.reuters.com/world/us/donald-trump/ said on Sunday that the U.S. Navy would start blockading nL1N40U07M the Strait of Hormuz, raising the stakes after marathon talks with Iran failed to reach a deal to end the war, jeopardising a fragile two-week ceasefire.
He added that the price of oil and gasoline nL1N40V03P could remain high through November’s U.S. midterm elections, a rare acknowledgement of the potential political fallout from his decision to attack Iran six weeks ago.
“The announced U.S. blockade marks an admission that the ceasefire’s central premise – at least as interpreted by the U.S. – which was the reopening of the Strait, is untenable for now,” said Erik Meyersson, analyst at Nordic bank SEB.
U.S. Central Command said that U.S. forces would begin implementing the blockade nL1N40V06L of all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports at 10 a.m. ET (1400 GMT) on Monday.
It would be “enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, including all Iranian ports on the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman”, CENTCOM said in a statement on X.
U.S. forces would not impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports, it added.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards nS8N40E024 said on Sunday that any military vessels attempting to approach the Strait of Hormuz would be considered in violation of the ceasefire and be dealt with harshly and decisively.
The OPEC producer group, meanwhile, has lowered nS8N3YF031 its forecast for world oil demand in the second quarter by 500,000 barrels per day, citing the impact of the war in the Middle East.
In a report on its website on Monday, OPEC said that crude production from OPEC+ members averaged about 35.06 million bpd in March, registering a monthly decline of 7.7 million bpd.
Prices for physical crude barrels are trading nL6N40R18J at significant premiums to futures, with some grades already at record highs of about $150 a barrel.
“[If] President Trump does indeed back his blockade threat with actual boats, a convergence between the paper and physical markets may soon come,” said RBC Capital Markets analyst Helima Croft.
Oil tankers are steering clear nL1N40V08O of the Strait of Hormuz ahead of the U.S. blockade on Iran, shipping data on LSEG showed.
However, three supertankers nL1N40U04R fully laden with oil passed through the strait on Saturday, shipping data showed. They appeared to be the first vessels to exit the Gulf since the ceasefire deal was struck last week.
On Sunday, Saudi Arabia said it had restored full oil pumping capacity through the East-West pipeline nL1N40S100 to about 7 million barrels per day after damage to its energy sector from attacks during the Iran conflict.
(Additional reporting by Florence Tan and Jeslyn Lerh in Singapore; Editing by Kevin Buckland, Kirsten Donovan and David Goodman)
