The oil price has not seen much movement this morning despite a second night of attacks by the US on Iran.
On Wednesday, benchmark Brent crude jumped by more than 5% in response to the first wave of attacks – but today the price today has dipped slightly to around $77.90 (£58) a barrel.
According to Sunaina Sinha Haldea, global head of private capital advisory for Raymond James, “Markets are now getting a bit immune to this up and down cycle of, ‘Are we in full conflict mode? Are we going back to the negotiating table?’ – and back and forth.”
She says that while there was a “pop” in the oil price on Wednesday, it was “nowhere near” the jump in the price seen at the start of the conflict when the Strait of Hormuz waterway, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas usually passes, was effectively closed.
“The expectation is that we go back to the negotiating table,” she says.
UK defence secretary brands Iran’s attacks ‘unacceptable’
Meanwhile, Britain’s Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis has said that the recent attacks by Iran on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz are “completely unacceptable”.
Speaking on the sidelines of this week’s Nato summit in Ankara and before the most recent US air strikes, Jarvis said: “We absolutely need to make sure that the memorandum of understanding that’s recently been negotiated is properly implemented.
“It is in everybody’s interest to resolve this conflict as quickly and effectively as possible, and it’s in everybody’s interest to make sure that the Strait of Hormuz is opened.”
Jarvis, who took up the post of defence secretary after his predecessor John Healey resigned over funding for defence, said “we’re feeling the cost of it [the Strait of Hormuz] being closed”.
He continued: “My constituents feel that in their pockets, so that’s why the UK is working closely with our international partners to support that process and make sure that we can find a resolution as quickly as possible.”
The UK did not participate in the joint US-Israel war on Iran but the UK and France are leading a group of nations willing to deploy a naval security force to the strait once the fighting is over – an offer that has been derided by Donald Trump.
With BBC report