Oil Rockets Past $90 as Gulf Shipping Grinds to a Halt — $150 a Barrel Is Now on the Table

With input from CNBC, Reuters, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, Al Jazeera, BBC, and EuroNews.

Brent crude shot above $90 a barrel on Friday, with US crude not far behind, after a burst of escalating strikes and a highly charged political response that’s choking shipping lanes and rattling markets.

The political bit that turned heads: president Donald Trump demanded “unconditional surrender” from Iran — a line that markets read as a signal the confrontation might not end quickly. That, in turn, has helped send oil futures sharply higher as traders price in longer-term supply pain.

Qatar’s energy minister, Saad al-Kaabi, put it bluntly in an interview: if tankers can’t transit the Strait of Hormuz, Gulf exporters could shut down flows within days — and crude could spike to as much as $150 a barrel in the coming weeks, “bring[ing] down the economies of the world,” he warned.

That’s not idle talk. The conflict has already disrupted tanker traffic and forced some producers to curb output; markets are reacting to the realistic prospect that roughly a fifth of global seaborne oil could be boxed in if the strait stays off limits.

The fallout isn’t limited to oil. Qatar has suspended some LNG output amid attacks and knock-on security concerns — a big deal because Qatari LNG is a major part of global gas supply. That helps explain why energy desks in Europe and Asia have been scrambling.

Bottom line for everyone paying at the pump or watching travel budgets: if the strait reopens quickly, prices could ease just as fast. If it doesn’t, expect a messy few weeks — higher fuel bills, higher factory and shipping costs, and real downside for global growth, just like the minister warned.