Brent futures fell $8.92, or 8.0%, to $103.27 a barrel
Oil Prices Drop 8% Ahead of Possible Middle East Peace Talks
Oil prices dropped about 8% on Monday after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would postpone any military strikes against Iranian power plants for five days and cited constructive talks to resolve hostilities in the Middle East, hours before a deadline that threatened to escalate the four-week-old war.
Brent futures fell $8.92, or 8.0%, to $103.27 a barrel at 12:31 p.m. EDT (1631 GMT), while U.S. West Texas Intermediate lost $7.17, or 7.3%, to $91.06.
Extreme price changes in recent weeks - Brent closed at its highest since July 2022 on Friday - boosted both crude benchmarks' historic or actual 30-day futures volatility to the highest levels since April 2022.
Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform that the U.S. and Iran had had "VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE" conversations over the past two days about a "COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST."
Crude futures plunged almost 15% earlier in the session, but pared losses after Iran said it launched new attacks on Israel and other sites in the Middle East and denied it was talking with the U.S.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards had said they would attack Israel's power plants and those supplying U.S. bases across the Gulf region if the United States follows through with Trump's threat to "obliterate" Iran's power network.
The war has already damaged major energy facilities in the Gulf and effectively halted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which handles about 20% of global oil and liquefied natural gas flows.
Two tankers bound for India sailed through the Strait of Hormuz on Monday carrying liquefied petroleum gas loaded in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, although overall traffic through the critical waterway remained blocked.
