LONDON (dpa-AFX) - Oil prices are climbing back to $100 per barrel, despite efforts by 32 countries to release 400 million barrels from their strategic reserves to ensure supply in global markets. The price increase comes as three more cargo ships were attacked in the Gulf region.
In the latest incidents of Iran's retaliatory attacks on energy supplies, two foreign oil tankers were hit by an 'unknown projectile' in Iraqi waters. The UK's maritime agency said a container ship was attacked in the Persian Gulf, bringing the total number of vessels attacked by Iran in the region in the last two days to six.
Energy prices have come down slightly after Brent crude topped $100 per barrel Thursday morning trading hours in Asian markets.
Brent is trading at around $97 mid-day, while New York-traded oil is up at $92.09 per barrel.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump said that the decision by IEA member states to release strategic oil reserves would help oil prices to fall, indicating that more measures may be taken to address the market volatility.
'Prices are coming down very substantially,' he said while touring Verst Logistics in Hebron, Kentucky, Wednesday.
'The International Energy Agency agreed to coordinate the release of a record 400 million barrels of oil from various national petroleum reserves around the world, which will substantially reduce the oil prices as we end this threat to America and this threat to the world'.
'Oil will be coming down. That's just a matter of war that happens. You can almost predict it. I would say it went up a little bit less than we thought. It's going to come down more than we, than anybody understands,' he added.
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