Oil prices

Published on
15/09/2026 – 7:51 GMT+2

Government bond markets remain under pressure as rising energy prices revive inflation concerns and increase expectations that major central banks will keep interest rates higher for longer.

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The benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield briefly touched 5.011% on Monday, according to Dow Jones Market Data, before falling back below 5%. The level was the highest since October 2023.

The yield crossed the psychologically important 5% threshold as higher government borrowing, resilient economic growth and heavy corporate debt issuance linked to artificial intelligence investment compounded pressure on US bonds. Yields move inversely to bond prices.

Rising Treasury yields can feed through to mortgages, corporate loans and other forms of credit, potentially slowing economic growth. They can also make bonds more attractive relative to highly valued equities.

The latest rise followed the US Treasury’s previously announced expansion of its bond-buyback programme. Last week, it offered to purchase up to $6 billion of debt maturing in 10 to 20 years – three times the previous operation’s size.

The yield on the 30-year US Treasury bond, meanwhile, remained close to its highest level since 2007.

The sell-off has also spread across Europe. France’s 10-year government bond yield rose to 4.50% on Monday, while the equivalent Italian yield reached around 4.40%.

Germany’s benchmark 10-year Bund yield climbed as high as 3.538%, according to Dow Jones Market Data, its highest level in 15 years.

Energy prices are a major source of pressure. Brent crude rose to around $107 a barrel on Tuesday morning, while US West Texas Intermediate traded close to $103, as attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure and shipping in the Gulf intensified concerns about supplies through the Strait of Hormuz.

The European Central Bank raised its deposit rate by 25 basis points to 2.5% last week and warned that inflation could remain above its target for an extended period. Markets are pricing in at least one further ECB increase this year.

Attention now turns to three major central-bank decisions. The US Federal Reserve announces its decision on Wednesday, followed by the Bank of England on Thursday and the Bank of Japan on Friday.

A Reuters poll found that 85% of economists expected the Fed to raise rates by 25 basis points, while money markets placed the probability of an increase at around 93%.

The BoE is widely expected to leave rates unchanged. Economists surveyed by Reuters unanimously forecast no change, although some analysts have warned that a surprise increase cannot be ruled out. The BoJ is widely expected to raise borrowing costs.

Published on 14/09/2026 – 9:40 GMT+2•Updated
9:46

The oil market spent Monday morning pricing in a weekend of bad news from the Gulf.

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Brent for October and November deliveries gained over 3% and crossed $108 a barrel, while the US benchmark WTI for October rose 2.3% to around $102, both extending last week’s advance after each reclaimed the $100 threshold.

Prices moved following Saudi Arabia’s announcement that its East-West pipeline is temporarily closed after drone attacks.

The line carries crude across the kingdom to Red Sea ports, allowing oil to reach export terminals without passing through the Strait of Hormuz, so its loss removes the main alternative at the moment the strait itself is most dangerous.

That danger was also demonstrated on Sunday, when a merchant vessel was hit in the strait, killing one person and injuring three others, according to Iranian authorities.

Passage through the waterway now works very differently from before the war.

Vessels must obtain Iranian permission to transit, and Tehran is weighing a mechanism to charge service fees. Ships that fail to comply are routinely targeted, while US forces periodically bomb the Iranian coastline to contest Tehran’s claim to control the strait.

Diplomatic efforts have stalled too.

Oman has postponed planned talks between Iran and Gulf states on the future of the waterway, which carries a large share of the world’s seaborne oil trade.

Record fuel prices and finger-pointing

The consequences are extremely visible at American pumps.

The US national average price of diesel crossed $6 a gallon on Friday for the first time in history, up from around $5.85 a week earlier and roughly 60% above the $3.71 drivers paid a year ago.

Petrol is also averaging $4.22 after setting records over the Labor Day weekend.

US President Donald Trump has pointed the finger elsewhere.

Speaking to reporters in Ireland on Sunday, where he was attending the Irish Open at his Doonbeg golf resort, Trump stated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia.”

“Let him go after targets, but not diesel fuel, because he’s causing a shortage of diesel fuel,” Trump added.

Ukraine has struck more than 20 Russian refinery targets this summer, prompting Moscow to ban diesel exports.

On the flight back from his state visit to Ireland this weekend, Trump reiterated the claim.

However, the supply arithmetic suggests otherwise.

Analysts attribute roughly 800,000 barrels a day of lost diesel supply to Russia’s export ban, against about 1.2 million from disruption around the Strait of Hormuz, according to Lipow Oil Associates.

The wider picture is more lopsided still as crude flows through the strait have fallen from around 20 million barrels a day before the war to about 7 million.

Between them, the two wars have also shut refineries representing around 5 million barrels a day of capacity.

Additional sources • AFP

BEIJING: Oil prices jumped more than two percent on Monday, after new Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia and Iranian attacks on ships in the Gulf compounded supply concerns following the closure of a key Saudi oil pipeline.

Brent crude futures rose $2.90, or 2.77 percent, to $107.51 per barrel as of 2313 GMT. WTI futures rose $2.27, or 2.27 percent, to $102.32 per barrel. Prices had initially risen more than ‌3 percent at market ‌open.

Saudi Arabian state media on Sunday released ​video ‌footage of ⁠damage to ​homes ⁠and a mosque from what it said was a Houthi attack on the country’s southern Jazan province. The Houthis said they had also struck a Saudi military base in a neighboring province.

A vessel in the Strait of Hormuz was struck by a projectile, causing a fire and forcing the crew to be evacuated, the British maritime security agency UKMTO said on Sunday.

Iran said one person was killed ⁠and four crew wounded aboard an Iranian commercial vessel struck ‌off its coast.

Oil prices had been ‌expected to rise on Monday amid growing concerns about ​risks to supply from Saudi Arabia, ‌the world’s largest oil exporter, whose East-West oil pipeline was shut on Friday ‌by a drone strike that originated in Iraq.

The loss of the pipeline, which helped Saudi Arabia re-route its exports avoiding the Strait of Hormuz, threatens up to 4 percent of global oil supply.

Meanwhile, Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis had reached the strategic island of Perim on ‌Friday, moving to tighten their control over the Bab Al-Mandab Strait, another key oil transit lane that has been shipping ⁠4-5 percent of ⁠global supply in recent months.

Oil surged 8 percent higher on the week due to the disruptions, rising above $100 for the first time since July.

“Looking ahead, unless this week’s talks in Oman produce something operational — or the East-West pipeline is brought back online quickly — the risk is that crude oil continues to extend its gains toward the $119.48 high of early March,” IG market analyst Tony Sycamore said in a note on Sunday.

Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi said on X later on Sunday, however, that a scheduled Monday meeting in Oman between Gulf countries and Iran to discuss the Strait of Hormuz had been postponed.

No peace talks ​have been held in the ​war, launched six months ago by the United States and Israel, since an interim agreement in June collapsed after a few weeks.

Published on 09/09/2026 – 10:16 GMT+2•Updated
10:22

The front month contract on Brent crude, the international standard for oil prices, crossed $100 per barrel again on Wednesday morning while the US standard, WTI, hovered around $95.

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Prices have risen almost 20% since the middle of last week as fighting around the world’s most important oil chokepoint has once again intensified.

It is also the first time since 23 July that oil has hit the $100 mark.

US Central Command said its forces destroyed five Iranian tankers carrying crude oil on 8 September after Iran’s Revolutionary Guard fired ballistic missiles at a US Navy warship twice within two days. The command did not identify the ship, but said it was not hit and continued patrolling regional waters.

It followed a similar strike on 5 September, when Iranian forces fired ballistic missiles at a US aircraft carrier and a destroyer, both of which evaded the attack. The command responded by disabling or destroying three Iranian tankers.

Tehran retaliated by firing missiles at a US military base in Jordan, where air defences intercepted most of them, and renewed threats to target tankers in Kuwaiti and Bahraini waters.

Iran has also repeatedly warned vessels against using unauthorised routes through the Strait of Hormuz.

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Tehran would soon declare an exclusion zone outside the strait, warning that any vessel entering without Iranian coordination would be added to a sanctions list.

Saudi Arabia has been drawn in too, with Aramco facilities at Jazan attacked again on Monday, though damage was reported as limited.

Roughly 7 million barrels a day are still moving through the Strait of Hormuz, against about 20 million before the war began on 28 February.

No end in sight

The military escalation is running alongside a financial one.

Washington launched Operation Economic Outcast in late August, an effort to sever Iran from the global financial system by targeting its access to digital assets, technology, gold, aviation and shipping.

The US Treasury designated close to 60 companies, individuals and vessels at the outset and has signalled fresh measures weekly, with the European Union endorsing the campaign this month.

Rhetoric on both sides has hardened.

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the country “will destroy [and sink]” Iranian oil tankers if Iran fires on American vessels while the Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf replied by stating “strike our assets and you get struck”.

US President Donald Trump has continued to insist the waterway is functioning, posting on Truth Social last week that “Hormuz volumes are BACK” and claiming 18 million barrels a day were flowing.

However, the US Energy Secretary Chris Wright put Monday’s figure at 17 million barrels of crude and products combined, while acknowledging the multi-day rolling average is considerably lower.

During last week’s White House press conference, US Vice President JD Vance also declined to categorise the ongoing conflict as a war and stated that “the only reason we do not have a worldwide energy crisis is because of the leadership of the President.”

Faced with the latest developments, analysts are adjusting upward.

Goldman Sachs raised its Brent and WTI forecasts by $5 on Monday to $85 and $80, respectively, for December and warned prices could exceed $120 next year should Gulf output remain 4 million barrels a day below pre-war levels, though the bank does not treat that as its base case.

Asian stocks fell on Monday as hawkish comments from Federal Reserve boss Kevin Warsh saw investors ramp up bets on a US interest rate hike, while oil prices spiked after a fresh flare-up in the US-Iran war.

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With inflation remaining stubbornly high – largely on the back of elevated energy costs – the US central bank has come under pressure to act, and Warsh’s refusal to provide guidance has stoked uncertainty.

But in a highly anticipated speech at the Jackson Hole symposium of central bankers and economists in Wyoming, he left traders with few doubts that he was ready to increase borrowing costs.

Warsh said: “We must be confident that underlying inflation is moving to our objective, clearly and at sufficient speed. Otherwise, we have work to do.”

He called the spike in inflation – currently at 3.7% and nearly double the Fed’s 2% target – “concerning”, and said he would be “hard-pressed” to describe current financial conditions as “restrictive”, a potential hint that rate hikes could be on the horizon.

However, he stopped short of saying he would support a hike, adding: “I stand here today committed to a discipline, not to a decision.”

All three main indexes on Wall Street fell Friday. Yields on short-term US Treasury bonds – which reflect monetary policy expectations – jumped, and the dollar rallied against its peers. Gold, which benefits from lower interest rates, fell.

And Asia followed suit, with tech firms – which rely on borrowing to fuel their huge AI investments – leading the way down.

Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Taipei and Jakarta were all down, though Singapore and Wellington edged up.

Investors eye crucial data releases

Focus will now turn to a string of crucial data releases over the next two weeks before the Fed makes its decision, with jobs up this week and the consumer price index (CPI) next week.

“Should we get an inline payrolls print that does not give the Fed too much to work with, next week’s core CPI report will become the major decider for the market’s Fed belief system,” wrote Chris Weston at Pepperstone.

“The volatility priced around that outcome across rates, forex and equities could therefore be significant.”

Oil prices spike on US-Iran tensions

The Fed’s battle against inflation has been hobbled by the Iran war, which has pushed oil prices higher.

And after a run lower for most of last week, they spiked again on Monday, a day after the United States said it had attacked Iranian rocket launchers on a small island in the Strait of Hormuz, its first strikes on the country in a month.

The attack prompted Tehran to retaliate by hitting US military targets in Jordan. Both main crude contracts rose more than 2% on Monday.

The exchange came shortly after the US-Iran war hit the six-month mark, and at a time when hostilities had been subsiding.

The news revived concerns about the conflict, with attempts and peace talks appearing to be going nowhere and the strait – through which a fifth of global crude and gas passes – largely closed.

US officials this month vowed the “economic asphyxiation” of Iran to make it open the waterway.

“Hormuz is once again threatening to put a floor under oil just as Warsh is putting a ceiling on how much inflation patience markets should assume from the Fed,” said Quintex Intel’s Stephen Innes.

“For oil traders, (the) move is another reminder of how quickly the geopolitical premium can return.

“Physical flows through Hormuz have improved materially from their worst levels, which is precisely why crude had started giving back some of the fear premium, but the latest exchange shows how fragile that progress remains and how quickly the shipping story can be pushed back onto the trading desk.”

Additional sources • AFP

Published on 18/08/2026 – 12:47 GMT+2•Updated
13:04

Government borrowing costs are surging on both sides of the Atlantic.

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Long-term bond yields across Europe’s biggest economies hit multi-year highs on Tuesday, while the yield on 30-year US Treasuries rose to its highest level in nearly two decades.

The sell-off came as hopes of a swift resolution to the Iran conflict faded, pushing oil prices higher and renewing concerns about persistent inflation. International benchmark Brent crude traded at nearly $91 a barrel on Tuesday morning amid heightened tensions in the Middle East.

“The breakdown in US-Iran peace talks has increased the risk that energy prices remain elevated for the rest of the year, which could keep inflation higher than expected and increase the chance of central banks raising rates,” Richard Carter, head of fixed interest research at Quilter Cheviot, told Euronews Business.

Investors are increasingly betting on tighter monetary policy in the eurozone, with the ECB deposit rate expected to reach 2.76% by March 2027, up from 2.25% currently.

According to Trading Economics, investors see a 90% probability of a September rate hike by the European Central Bank (ECB).

At the same time, in the US, the 30-year Treasury yield reached 5.33%, a level not seen since 2007. In the UK, the 30-year gilt traded at 5.85% — its highest level since May 2026.

As government bonds came under renewed selling pressure globally, France’s 10-year bond yield rose to 4.10% on Tuesday morning, its highest level since June 2009.

Germany’s 10-year Bund yield, the benchmark for the eurozone, climbed above 3.25%, reaching its highest level since March 2011.

France’s 30-year bond yield reached its highest level since 2008, amid a global bond sell-off and growing concern about the country’s 2027 budget negotiations and next year’s presidential election. Germany’s 30-year bond yield rose to 3.78%, its highest level in 15 years.

Rising long-dated bond yields are not driven solely by expectations of higher interest rates and inflation fears.

“Investors are concerned about the scale of borrowing in major economies including the UK, France and Japan,” Carter continued, adding that “significant volumes of AI-related bond issuance have also added to supply, creating further pressure on prices and pushing yields higher.

Higher borrowing costs put pressure on economies and raise financing costs across a range of investments.

As government debt offices constantly raise money through bond markets, the effect of the jump in yields will gradually feed into their borrowing costs as they refinance maturing debt.

Italy is expected to refinance maturing debt equivalent to 17% of GDP in 2026, according to S&P Global Ratings, compared with 12% for France and 7% each for Germany and the UK.

For now, bond markets are likely to remain sensitive to developments in both geopolitics and economic data,” Carter said.

He added that bonds remain attractive to investors because yields are historically high and comfortably exceed inflation, offering a positive return after price rises are taken into account.