NEW YORK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th January, 2020) Oil prices settled up almost 4 percent after a US airstrike killed a top Iranian general in Iraq, raising fears of war in the world's top hub for crude production.
Brent, the global oil benchmark, settled up $2.35, or 3.5 percent, at $68.60 per barrel on Friday after the US attack near Baghdad airport killed Qassem Soleimani, the commander who led Iran's Revolutionary Guards' Quds force.
Brent hit $69.48 earlier in the day, barreling toward $70. The last time it reached those levels was in the aftermath of the mid-September attack on Saudi Arabia's oil facilities, an aggression that the United States had accused Iran of masterminding.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the US crude benchmark, settled up $1.87, or 3.1%, at $63.05 per barrel. Earlier in the session, WTI reached an eight-month high of $64.08.
"This has put risk premium back in the oil market," Dan Flynn, a commodities analyst at the price Futures Group in Chicago, said, referring to the Soleimani killing, which Iran has vowed to avenge.
US President Donald Trump said Washington took preemptive action against Soleimani to "stop a war", and not start one. An advisor to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, however, said the United States crossed a "red line" with the attack and Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei warned that a "harsh retaliation is waiting" for the United States.
Oil prices closed 2019 with their large gains in three years. Brent rose 24 percent on the year while the West Texas Intermediate gained 34 percent.
