US strikes on Iran push Brent oil toward $95 per barrel

A new round of US airstrikes on Iran sent oil prices jumping once more in midafternoon trading on Tuesday as investors evaluated a potential return to a more conflict-heavy situation in the Persian Gulf.

Futures on Brent crude ( BZ=F ), the international benchmark, traded up by more than 4% to cross above $94 per barrel, while those on US benchmark WTI crude ( CL=F ) rose 4.5% to brush up against $90.

The US military on Tuesday launched a renewed round of airstrikes on Iran, striking several sites within the country tied to Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, US Central Command said Tuesday afternoon . Strikes were heard in the regions around the cities of Bandar Abbas and Chabahar, according to regional media and other local reports.

President Trump said the US strikes were retaliation for attempts by the IRGC to place mines in the Strait of Hormuz — which the US has spent weeks attempting to demine to allow for the safe passage of vessels through the waterway — and for attempted Iranian strikes on sites inside Jordan.

"If the failed Nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level, but it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings and, when it is over, there will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran!" Trump said on Tuesday .

An Iranian spokesperson and other leaders have, through state-affiliated media, said that Iran would retaliate for the strikes, with targets to include US military bases and US economic interests in the region.

The strikes follow attacks on two oil supertankers — one each owned by Saudi Arabian and South Korean shipping companies — attempting to exit the strait through Tuesday morning. Both were struck by projectiles, a maritime risk consultancy said Tuesday.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks, but they come after a flare-up over the weekend of US-Iran hostilities, which saw a series of US airstrikes on Iran's Larak Island, a small landmass inside the Strait of Hormuz, where US Central Command has said the Iranian military was readying rockets that would carry sea mines into the waterway.

Iran's military retaliated with drone strikes inside Jordan and the United Arab Emirates and said it had seized a bulk carrier vessel near the port of Bandar Abbas inside the Strait of Hormuz.

The conflict over the weekend — the first proper return to kinetic action in roughly a month — has renewed worries over the state of the global energy complex, even as oil output from the Persian Gulf has returned to roughly two-thirds of prewar levels, per Goldman Sachs. Much of that oil is being exported from the region via pipelines to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Oman.