Oil Jumps to $79 After Fresh Strikes Near Hormuz
Brent rose about 4 percent to $79.29 a barrel on Monday, its highest since June 22, as disrupted traffic through Hormuz threatens to raise energy import costs, including for Serbia.
- Brent rose about 4 percent on Monday to $79.29 a barrel, its highest level since June 22.
- The price now sits roughly 9 percent above where it stood before the first US and Israeli strikes on Iran in late February.
- At one point only six ships passed through the Strait of Hormuz, against the usual 18 to 22 a day.
- In Serbia diesel costs 220 and petrol 196 dinars a litre through July 17.
Brent crude jumped about 4 percent on Monday, July 13, to $79.29 a barrel, its highest level since June 22. West Texas Intermediate traded near $74 at the same time. That pushed the global benchmark to roughly 9 percent above the level recorded before the first US and Israeli strikes on Iran in late February, erasing most of the decline the market had booked through the spring.
The immediate trigger was a round of fresh US strikes on Iranian targets over the weekend, along with Iranian attacks on commercial ships and Gulf states. Iran announced that the Strait of Hormuz was closed until further notice, a claim the US Central Command denied. Regardless of who controls the passage, traffic fell sharply: at one point only six vessels moved through the strait, against the usual 18 to 22 a day.
Hormuz carries a fifth of the world’s oil
The Strait of Hormuz is the most sensitive chokepoint in the energy trade. Roughly a fifth of global oil consumption and a large share of Qatari liquefied natural gas pass through it every day. When the number of transits drops from around twenty to just six, the market does not read that as a statistic but as a risk premium it immediately builds into the price of a barrel. That mechanism explains why a 4 percent move followed in a single day.
For importers without domestic production, Serbia among them, a costlier barrel does not stay an abstract figure on an exchange. The cost of crude feeds through the refining margin into retail with a lag of a few weeks. If $79 holds, the pressure on the import bill and on the exchange rate becomes measurable within the next accounting period.
How much of the rise reaches Serbian pumps?
Domestic fuel prices are set administratively in two-week cycles, so a global jump does not enter retail at once. Since July 10 a litre of diesel in Serbia costs 220 dinars and petrol 196 dinars, one dinar higher than the previous cycle. Those prices hold through July 17, when the next adjustment is due.
The key question is whether Monday’s jump is a one-off reaction to the weekend or the start of a longer disruption. If shipping through Hormuz stays thinned out, the next two-week calculation can hardly absorb the difference without an upward correction. Serbia’s oil refinery runs on imported crude, so any lasting risk premium on a barrel passes through into the cost of a litre.
Historically, the market has corrected such geopolitical spikes lower as soon as it became clear that physical delivery was not cut off. The question for the coming days is not whether oil can rise further, but how long the market can hold the risk premium before the first sign that tankers are moving again. Have you already noticed a change in the price at your local pump?
