The price of Brent crude hit $100 per barrel Wednesday morning after heavy fighting between the U.S. and Iran. That’s the highest level since late July for the key international benchmark.
U.S. Central Command said Tuesday evening it had struck Iranian assets: “CENTCOM forces destroyed five Iranian crude oil carriers, Sept. 8, after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targeted a U.S. Navy warship with ballistic missiles twice over the past two days.”
The IRGC, a force in the Iranian military, painted a different picture of its own preceding attacks, saying it had successfully damaged two warships in ballistic missile strikes.
After the U.S. strikes on Tuesday, Iran launched missiles at Jordan, which hosts American forces. The Jordanian military said almost all of the missiles were intercepted and two fell into uninhabited areas. However, Iranian state media released videos purportedly depicting successful missile strikes on Jordan’s Muwaffaq al-Salti Air Base.
The IRGC said its retaliation also included strikes on two U.S. vessels and eight oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.
In recent days Iran has signaled a willingness to escalate the war, the New York Times reported Wednesday. “From now on, any aggression against Iran’s interests and security will be met with a response that is faster, heavier, and more painful,” said Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf, the lead Iranian negotiator, on Sunday.
A U.S. naval blockade has made it much more difficult for Iran to ship oil. The Iranian government raised gasoline prices Tuesday amid a fuel shortage.
In America, the average price of gasoline was $4.22 per gallon on Wednesday, up from $2.98 before the war.
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