Oil prices tick up as conflict widens, disruptions grow in Middle East

Oil prices tick up as conflict widens, disruptions grow in Middle East Jake Conley · Breaking Business News Reporter Tue, September 15, 2026 at 6:11 PM GMT+2 4 min read CL=F BZ=F Oil prices spiked on Tuesday, climbing back toward recent highs as headlines from the Middle East — in particular, Saudi Arabia — intensified growing pressure on the physical market. Futures on Brent crude ( BZ=F ), the international benchmark, picked up more than $2. 80 to cross back over $108.

50 a barrel and approach the $109 mark seen on Monday. Meanwhile, those on US benchmark WTI crude ( CL=F ) jumped by roughly $3. 50 to trade above $104.

50. Worries about oil exports from the Persian Gulf continued to grow on Tuesday, with Saudi Arabia in focus as market watchers attempt to assess damage to the kingdom's oil infrastructure, critical to moving oil out of the Persian Gulf while the Strait of Hormuz remains wracked by the US-Iran conflict. Saudi Arabia has faced a series of attacks on critical energy infrastructure from the Yemeni Houthi militia group and other Iran-backed proxy forces operating in Iraq, the most pressing of those being strikes that over the weekend forced Saudi authorities to shutter the kingdom's East-West pipeline.

The East-West line carries oil to the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea, where it is loaded onto tankers that can take oil south through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which runs along Yemen, or north to the Suez Canal and the adjacent SUMED pipeline to the Mediterranean Sea. With a capacity of roughly 7 million barrels per day (bpd), the pipeline has become the main driver of the recovery in Persian Gulf oil exports to roughly 70% of prewar levels. The latest disruption helped catalyze the move in oil prices back above $100 per barrel .

"The Red Sea is now a hot war zone," Rabobank strategists led by Michael Every wrote to clients on Tuesday. "Those flows are not coming back in full, and more importantly, rebuilding a pipeline is not the same as restarting. " Read more:  How to protect your money as Mideast turmoil fuels market volatility Saudi exports have largely recovered to their June levels of roughly 5 million bpd even as loadings at Yanbu have recently dropped, per Goldman Sachs.

But that data was tempered on Tuesday by news that the kingdom has reportedly told European buyers some September cargo loadings will be canceled, per Reuters. The Houthis have managed in the past week to take control of several cities and a growing swath of territory in Saudi Arabia, threatening to disrupt the Saudi oil trade even further. The militia group has said it will blockade attempts by any vessels carrying Saudi oil to transit the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

To the east, along the Strait of Hormuz — which was responsible for roughly 15 million bpd of oil flows before the war — the US and Iran conflict has continued, with the path toward a resolution no clearer for markets. President Trump on Monday said Iran's government "wants to make a deal, quickly and badly," yet those comments came after a planned meeting between Tehran and leaders of other Gulf nations was indefinitely postponed on Sunday. Story Continues Houthi supporters shout slogans as they celebrate advances made by Houthi forces in fighting with government forces along Yemen's Red Sea coast, in Sanaa, Yemen, on Sept.

11, 2026. (Reuters/Adel Al Khader) · Reuters / REUTERS Iran's leaders have signaled a willingness to let the conflict run through the midterm elections, hoping to inflict economic pain on Washington as the White House faces strong odds that the Democratic Party will flip control of the House of Representatives, hamstringing the president's agenda. "We had previously flagged Iran's response to the U.

S. economic blockade as a risk scenario; that risk is now materializing," the Rabobank strategists wrote. "The situation is increasingly febrile, with each development narrowing Saudi Arabia's remaining options for moving oil and raising the risk of further disruption.

" The news in the Red Sea comes as a reminder that the oil market is facing pressure from multiple fronts. Not only are disruptions in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea hampering crude oil exports, but Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia's refining sector have pushed Moscow — once the provider of 10% of the world's diesel exports — to implement a fuel export ban. Adding to Middle Eastern disruptions, Libya's National Oil Corporation on Tuesday announced it was suspending production at two oilfields after protests by the militia group in charge of guarding the country's oil production sites.

That dynamic has put a chokehold on the physical oil market, where oil is actually bought, sold, and transported — and where prices remain far above benchmark futures. So-called Dated Brent, the benchmark for pricing much of the world's physical crude oil, was trading hands above $130 per barrel on Tuesday, per Bloomberg data. Grades in Dubai and Oman held around $128.

And all of this has intensified pressure on the Federal Reserve, set to announce its latest interest rate decision tomorrow . The latest consumer and producer pricing reports have shown energy prices exerting a persistently strong upward push on inflation, as heightened prices on refined products such as gasoline and diesel have begun to bleed into the wider economy. "That creates an increasingly uncomfortable feedback loop," Capital.

com analyst Daniela Hathorn said Tuesday. "Higher energy prices threaten growth but also make it harder for central banks to declare victory over inflation. " Jake Conley is a breaking news reporter covering US equities for Yahoo Finance.

Follow him on X at @byjakeconley or email him at jake. conley@yahooinc. com .