New York.- The price of Texas Intermediate oil (WTI) opened this Wednesday with a slight increase of 0.02%, to 83.22 dollars per barrel, following a US attack in the Gulf of Oman and another by Houthi rebels from Yemen in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the gateway to the Red Sea.
At 09:00 local time (13:00 GMT), WTI futures contracts for September, the benchmark in the United States, were up 0.02 dollars from the previous close.
The United States Central Command (Centcom) confirmed on Tuesday that it fired at a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship for attempting to violate the naval blockade in effect on the Iranian coast, after media and maritime security organizations reported the incident.
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Centcom detailed that a US Navy MH-60 helicopter “fired two Hellfire missiles at the engine room of the Vela Nova after the vessel’s civilian crew ignored repeated warnings from US forces,” after which it managed to intercept it.
Meanwhile, two rescuers died yesterday when a missile struck while they were carrying out salvage operations near the merchant vessel Tihama, in which four crew members died after being attacked in the Bab al-Mandab Strait by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the country’s internationally recognized government reported.
The new attacks come as the U.S. increases its pressure to try to choke the Iranian economy, amid stalled peace talks more than five months after the start of the war launched by the North American country and Israel against the Islamic Republic.
The conflict has turned the Strait of Hormuz into the center of discord, as free passage through this route has remained interrupted since mid-July, following the breakdown of the truce agreed upon by both countries to reach a definitive peace agreement and the reimposition of the U.S. naval blockade on Iranian coasts and ports.
