Kuwait and Bahrain have started to restore power to residential areas following Iranian strikes on the two Gulf nations in retaliation for U.S. strikes on Iran in the latest conflagration in the Middle East that threatens to unravel the fragile truce.
The fresh escalation of tensions also threatens the memorandum of understanding under which the U.S. and Iran committed to negotiations for a peace deal by the end of August, Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and the U.S. to lift its blockade in the Gulf of Oman aimed at stopping Iranian oil exports.
Crude oil prices jumped early on Wednesday after the United States and Iran exchanged military strikes again, following Iran’s attacks on three vessels off the Omani coast. The United States also canceled its sanction waiver for Iranian crude in response to the flare-up.
After Iran hit three ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the United States overnight attacked multiple targets in Iran, including “air defence systems, command and control networks, coastal radar sites, anti-ship missile capabilities, and more than 60 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps small boats in and near the strait to degrade Iran’s ability to continue attacking international commerce flowing through the international trade corridor,” U.S. CENTCOM said.
Iran retaliated with strikes on U.S. military bases in Bahrain and Kuwait in a stark reminder that the ceasefire agreed by the warring parties last month is anything but stable.
On Wednesday, Kuwait said it had restored electricity supply to all residential areas that were affected by outages. These were caused by a number of overhead lines going out of service.
In Bahrain, the Electricity and Water Authority announced that power had been fully restored after a temporary outage affected several areas in the country.
The latest flare-up in the Middle East threatens to halt traffic through the Strait of Hormuz as oil and LNG tanker owners and operators remain very cautious about transiting the chokepoint every time hostilities return.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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