Oil prices surged on Monday after more signs showed that peace talks between Iran and the United States were faltering.
Brent, the international oil price benchmark, rose over 4.2 percent to around $94.98 a barrel, its biggest increase in almost a month. West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, rose over 5.5 percent to around $92.16 a barrel, its biggest jump since the end of April. Still, prices remain well below wartime highs.
Iranian and American negotiators have been talking about extending a cease-fire and reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial shipping lane for oil and other commodities that runs along Iran’s southern border. But the talks may be at risk of collapsing after Iran, the United States and Israel engaged in new attacks and threatened more hostilities.
The United States said it carried out strikes in Iran over the weekend, the latest in a series of attacks in the past week. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards announced that it had struck an American air base in retaliation for a U.S. attack on a communications facility.
The possibility of continued fighting has raised concerns about how long the world’s stockpiles of oil and fuels will last if the strait does not reopen.
“There has been quiet panic building,” said Helima Croft, the head of global commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets.
The war with Iran has forced Persian Gulf countries to slash output by more than 14 million barrels a day, according to the International Energy Agency. That amounts to almost 14 percent of prewar global supply.
A variety of measures have helped to blunt the impact of those losses. China has been importing less oil than normal. Dozens of countries agreed to release oil and fuels from their emergency stores. And the United States, Canada, Brazil and other oil producers have been exporting more, according to the I.E.A. In addition, high prices have reduced demand for oil.
But energy executives and analysts have expressed growing concern that inventories of oil and fuels like gasoline and diesel are dwindling.
“We’re approaching unheard-of inventory levels. I mean, really, really low levels. You can debate whether it’s going to hit those really low levels in two weeks or three weeks,” Neil Chapman, an Exxon Mobil senior vice president, said at a conference last week. “But once you get to that point, then you’ll see price shoot up.”
Mr. Chapman did not specify whether he was referring to crude oil inventories or those for specific fuels.
The United States has been withdrawing about nine million barrels of oil from a federal stockpile each week. At that rate, the country’s strategic reserves would hit their lowest levels since 1983 next week, according to a New York Times review of data from the Energy Information Administration, a division of the Energy Department.
“That’s a debt we’re going to have to pay back,” said Amos Hochstein, who was a senior adviser on energy and foreign policy issues in the Biden administration.
