Meanwhile, Ukraine vows to keep striking Russian refineries: File Image/Pixabay 

Iran’s escalation of meddling with Strait of Hormuz crude transit combined with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowing to continue attacking Russia refineries caused oil prices on Friday to jump by over 3 percent – while Washington prepared to strike the Islamic republic with the “mother of all bombs.”

West Texas Intermediate rose 3.5 percent to close at $101.41 per barrel, while as of mid-session Brent was up 3.7 percent at $109.87.

For the week, WTI added more than 10 percent, and Brent gained nearly 5 percent.

Iran has been responsible for at least nine tanker and cargo ship strikes since Sunday, with the Singapore-registered container ship GFS Price sinking and its crew safely evacuated.

Kpler estimated that shipments stood at 9.4 million barrels per day (bpd) for the week ended Wednesday, about 70 percent of the average before the Iran war.

For his part, U.S. president Donald Trump said he would not use nuclear weapons against Iran because the Department of War was developing new strike plans that could include using the “Mother of all bombs.”

He said, “This is just an extremely large bomb; it’s like a tiny nuclear bomb, but the mother of all bombs is one big bomb, but it’s not nuclear.”

Meanwhile, Zelenskyy said Kyiv would resume strikes on Russian refineries in response to Russia attacking Ukrainian infrastructure despite a truce recently brokered between the two countries by Trump.

While this has prompted buyers of Russian diesel to look elsewhere for fuel, there are limited opportunities to do so, with refineries in the U.S. and Europe already running all-out.

Trump continued to tout his proposal to ease U.S. sanctions on Russia in exchange for the former Soviet Union releasing some diesel supplies to the world market, but analysts feared the deal will be blocked if Democrats take back control of the House after November’s midterm elections.

Mason Mendez, global real assets analyst at Wells Fargo, doubted the deal will ever reach fruition, and he also expressed concern about the Middle East hostilities, remarking, “Looking into 2027, the need to rebuild depleted global inventories could create an addition source of demand and keep energy prices elevated for longer.”

In other war-related oil news on Friday, the U.S. Department of Energy issued a request for proposals for an exchange of up to 17 million barrels of crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, following the International Energy Agency on Thursday agreeing to release over 20 million barrels of diesel to the market ASAP as well as any oil remaining from a record emergency reserves release pledged in March to boost supply.