Crude oil prices gave up some of the gains they made earlier this week, after U.S. Vice President JD Vance contacted the secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council in a bid to restart peace talks.
At the time of writing, Brent crude was trading at $114.14 per barrel, and West Texas Intermediate was trading at $101.45 per barrel, both down from Wednesday but still significantly higher than they were at the start of October.
The Wall Street Journal reported late on Wednesday that Vice President Vance had written a letter to Mohsen Rezaei, who is a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, to discuss the prospect of a peace deal. The move followed President Trump’s threat to restart hostilities against Iran after the November 3 midterm elections.
The U.S. president also said last week that “We’re not negotiating with them, we are going to have something one way or another, it’ll happen soon,” which is at odds with VP Vance’s move, which, according to the Wall Street Journal, Trump was aware of and approved.
It appears that regardless of the chance that peace negotiations actually stand, oil traders once again take an optimistic stance, betting on success in any future negotiations. Qatari mediators this week presented a new draft peace deal to the Iranian side, according to Reuters, with the latter indicating it has not given up a diplomatic resolution to the war but also reiterating that its conditions must be met for peace to be sealed.
However, while traders grow optimistic about Iran, the Yemeni Houthis are still pummeling Saudi civil and energy infrastructure and targeting Saudi forces within Yemen. The latest attack was on the Aden airport in Yemen and took place on Wednesday. On the other hand, Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries appear to be on hold, with JP Morgan reporting, as quoted by Reuters, that the last confirmed attack was on the Ryazan refinery on October 15.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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