Israel's threat of attacking Iran's oil production drives up int'l oil prices

Israel's threat to target Iran's oil production infrastructure, including gas and oil rigs, refineries and storage facilities, has heightened market concerns about international crude oil supply, leading to a significant spike in international oil prices during the U.S. trading session on Tuesday.

The price of both U.S. light crude oil and Brent Crude Oil Futures rose by more than 2 percent on Tuesday with the upward trend continuing into Wednesday.

The price of light crude oil futures for November delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange reached 72.13 dollars per barrel in Wednesday morning trading while London Brent Crude Oil Futures for December delivery reached 75.74 dollars per barrel.

During the U.S. trading session on Tuesday, international oil prices surged by over 5 percent, reaching an intraday high, but later retreated as market sentiment gradually stabilized.

Tensions in the Middle East have heightened concerns about oil supply, yet analysts believe that it is unlikely to lead to a long-term and significant disruption in global crude oil supply.

"There is now uncertainty about where is the next target. Energy facilities, critical infrastructures could be the other target. Looking at where the prices will go, definitely it depends on where the destruction would be and how much oil is going to be taken off the market. But historically, we have seen that geopolitical factors, if the impact is not in a larger scale and could be mitigated, is not huge,” said Sara Vakhshouri, president of SVB Energy International, a U.S.-based strategic energy consulting firm.

Iran is among the world's top 10 oil producers, with a production of 3.277 million barrels per day in August this year, according to the monthly report from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Market estimates suggest that Iran exports approximately half of its oil production. Investors are concerned that the escalating tensions between Israel and Iran, the potential attack on Iran's oil facilities or Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz could heighten the risk of further increases in oil prices.

International oil prices are also facing widespread pressure from oversupply and weak demand. Several Wall Street investment banks including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have lowered their long-term oil price expectations, and Citigroup has projected that oil prices could fall to around 60 dollars per barrel by 2025.

Israel's threat of attacking Iran's oil production drives up int'l oil prices

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠A Chinese businesswoman in Lebanon on Tuesday said China's evacuation of its citizens from the Middle East country was swift.

The first batch of 69 Chinese citizens, along with 11 of their foreign family members, have been evacuated from Lebanon and safely arrived in Cyprus on Tuesday as fighting between Israel and Hezbollah intensified in southern Lebanon. 

Eliana Ibrahim, president of the China Arab Association for Promoting Cultural and Commercial Exchange, who has lived in Lebanon for over two decades, talked about the latest situation in Lebanon during in an interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN). 

"We all know Lebanon is in such kind of situation, but really for everybody's life it's quite different. The people in the south of Lebanon, they have to leave their houses. They are sleeping on the street and they're sleeping in the public school which opened by the government to host them. Some of them rent houses in the north of Lebanon or they live in their relatives' houses," she said. 

The killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Israeli airstrikes on the Lebanese capital of Beirut on Friday marks a major escalation in the long-running conflict and deepens fears of a wider regional war.

"The only explosion I heard was the one on Friday, the one which was targeting the leader of Hezbollah. That was the huge one and the other explosions, I never heard that," Eliana Ibrahim said.

She said she kept contact with the Chinese Embassy in Lebanon about the evacuation plans. She believes the Chinese authorities have made quick response to the worsening sitution in the Middle East country. 

"I was the witness of the 2006 evacuation of the Chinese people in Lebanon. So I shared my experience with the Chinese embassy and I gave them all the support because we have a travel agency. We know from where we can rent buses. So all of this information was already requested by the Chinese embassy one year ago. It's even quicker than I thought," she said. 

Cyprus, the closest European Union member state to the Middle East, is a hub for evacuees, having handled an influx of around 60,000 people fleeing the Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006.

Chinese citizens swiftly evacuated from Lebanon amid escalating Israel-Hezbollah crossfire