Following the escalation of hostilities between Israel and Iran, Nigeria ria’s crude oil prices yester-day rose at the internation-al market to almost $80 per barrel (PB).
The three major oil grades are Bonny Light, Brass River and Qua Iboe, which traded at $77.86 PB, $77.90 PB and $71.95 PB re-spectively.
The prices of other in-ternational grades also in-creased. Brent crude rose by more than 7 percent and traded at $74.82 PB while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) also rose to $73.53 PB.
The oil prices rise was attributed to the escalation of hostilities between Isra-el and Iran. The hostilities caused volatility in the global oil market as traders engaged in panicky pricing in the risk of major supply disruptions from a region that accounts for roughly one-third of the world’s oil production.
Israel had launched a series of coordinated air-strikes on Iran, dubbed Ris-ing Lion, which were said to have targeted nuclear facilities in what was de-scribed as a decisive move to prevent the Islamic Re-public from becoming a nuclear power.
The Israeli military an-nounced the operation on its official Telegram chan-nel, saying that dozens of fighter jets struck Iranian nuclear complexes in var-ious parts of the country.”
The attacks have con-tinued across multiple cit-ies across the nation, and Iranian state media reports that fresh strikes are hitting Tehran.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has warned Israel that it “must expect severe pun-ishment” following the “crime” of attacking Iran and killing several top-level military commanders and six nuclear scientists.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that Israel coordinat-ed with the United States “in advance” of the attack on Iran, and the Trump ad-ministration “knew about the strike.”
“We have told them in advance, they knew about the strike,” Netanyahu said in a pre-recorded video re-leased Friday afternoon. “What they will do now, I leave it to President Trump, he makes his own decisions independently.”
“I will not speak for him. He speaks very persuasive-ly and very firmly and said Iran should not have nucle-ar weapons, they should not have enrichment capa-bilities,” Netanyahu added.
US President, Donald Trump said the US “of course” supports Israel in its actions, he praised the Israeli attacks as “excel-lent” and said Iran still has time to make a deal over its nuclear program before “there is nothing left” of the country.
Israeli sources ex-plained that the goal of the airstrikes was to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program, which Israel felt was an ex-istential threat. The coun-try had closed its airspace and placed its military on high alert and said it was fully prepared for a poten-tial Iranian retaliation.
Israeli Prime Minis-ter, Benjamin Netanya-hu convened his cabinet following the strikes and described the action as “a defining moment in Isra-el’s history.”
Netanyahu said the op-eration targeted the heart of Iran’s nuclear enrich-ment program.
He said: “We struck at the heart of Iran’s nuclear weaponisation program. We targeted Iran’s main en-richment facility in Natanz. We targeted Iran’s leading nuclear scientists working on the nuclear bomb. We also struck at Iran’s ballistic missile program.”
“The operation could last for as many days as it takes. The Israeli govern-ment will not allow ‘the world’s most dangerous regime to get the world’s most dangerous weap-ons’.”
