The Latest: Key oil price spikes over $100 as Iranian attacks hit shipping
Mar 11, 2026, 9:02 PM | Updated: Mar 12, 2026, 7:22 pm
A person fills their vehicle at a gas station in Tallinn, Estonia, Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
The price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, spiked back over $100 as Iranian strikes hit ships in the regions waters and the ongoing American-Israeli war with Iran showed so signs of slowing.
Thursday’s major developments include Iranian attacks against commercial ships around the Strait of Hormuz and Iraq’s port of Basra, escalating a campaign of squeezing the oil-rich Gulf region as global energy concerns mount. The U.S. campaign of airstrikes in Iran is now in its 13th day.
The Israeli military is also striking Iran and its militant ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, where more than 800,000 people have been displaced by the fighting.
Here’s the latest:
Israel’s military said it was working to intercept a missile launch from Iran early on Thursday morning.
It was the third such announcement Thursday, as Israel also said it was targeting Tehran with strikes.
Kuwait’s Defense Ministry said an Iranian drone smashed into a residential building Thursday in the small Mideast nation, wounding two people.
A container ship off Dubai in the Persian Gulf came under attack Thursday, sparking a small fire, the British military said.
The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said the attack happened just before dawn. It said an “unknown projectile” hit the vessel as it was some 65 kilometers (40 miles) off the coast of Dubai’s Jebel Ali port.
It added that the crew of the vessel were safe.
The price of a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, topped $100 a barrel early Thursday, just days after it spiked near $120.
Oil prices shot more than 9% higher as supply concerns worsened with Iranian attacks on commercial shipping around the Strait of Hormuz.
U.S. benchmark crude oil jumped to about $95 a barrel.
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An attack on Iraq’s Basra port early Thursday killed at least one person and forced authorities to halt operations at all the country’s oil terminals, officials said.
Farhan al-Fartousi, the director-general of the General Company for Ports of Iraq, made the announcement in a statement carried by the state-run Iraqi News Agency on Thursday. Al-Fartousi said the attack targeted ships in the ship-to-ship transfer are of the Basra port on the Persian Gulf. He said it remained unclear if the ship was targeted by a flying or seaborne drone or a missile.
Rescuers recovered one dead body and helped 38 others after the attack. He said commercial ports in Iraq remained open, though the oil terminals had been shut.
Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization has identified the two tankers as the Safesea Vishnu, flagged in the Marshall Islands, and the tanker Zefyros, flagged in Malta.
