Oil tops $90 as Middle East fighting escalates

Oil has pushed past ninety dollars a barrel, Axios reports, in the first major trading session since the deaths of three U.S. service members and a fresh escalation in Middle East hostilities. Brent crude's climb above that level is its first since mid-June, building on last week's gains after the U.S.-Iran ceasefire deteriorated further and tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz thinned out. The nationwide average price for gasoline in the United States sat just below the politically sensitive four dollars per gallon mark, according to AAA, and was expected to cross it. Axios notes the market has absorbed the crisis better than expected, helped by reduced Chinese imports, coordinated government stockpile releases including from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and ample commercial inventories. But analysts warn those shock absorbers are eroding, and refined products face particular strain after Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries prompted Moscow to ban diesel exports.

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