Brent nears $97, WTI tops $92 as Red Sea attacks and China buying lift crude
Crude keeps climbing. Brent is near $97 and WTI is over $92, pushed up by attacks on Middle East shipping and a rebound in Chinese imports off a decade low. For US jobbers and haulers, that feeds into rack prices over the next week or two, and it lands on top of retail gas that already hasn't come down.
The Jizan strike
Saudi Aramco's 400,000-barrel-a-day Jizan refinery was hit again Monday, the Financial Times reported, citing two people with knowledge of the incident. One called it similar in scale to last month's strike that briefly knocked the plant offline. Aramco hasn't commented and no group has claimed it. Jizan is on the Red Sea and has been a repeated target. Saudi Arabia is already moving more crude west to avoid the Strait of Hormuz, so losing refined output on that coast tightens product supply at a bad moment.
Russian refineries
Ukrainian drones struck three Russian oil-processing plants Monday, in the Perm region (a Lukoil refinery), Tatarstan, and Ryazan, Zelensky said in a Sept. 7 statement. The strikes came right after US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff visited Moscow and Kyiv over the weekend to restart peace talks. Every barrel of Russian refining capacity offline tightens the global product balance, and that pressure shows up in the crude and diesel numbers US buyers pay.
Goldman's $120 call
Goldman Sachs says oil could reach $120 a barrel if shipping attacks broaden. Daan Struyven, its co-head of global commodities research, told Bloomberg TV Monday that the risk of disruptions spreading and intensifying is a real one. It's a what-if tied to shipping getting worse. If the strait and Red Sea stay open, crude could ease back off these levels.
China and the premiums
Chinese import demand is rising off a decade low, and it shows in physical crude premiums. Congo's Djeno grade is being offered at $20 a barrel over ICE Brent, up from a $15 premium two weeks ago, traders told Bloomberg. Canadian, South American, and African grades have all firmed. More competition for those barrels means less relief for US refiners buying crude on the water.
What to watch
Watch whether Jizan comes back fast or stays down. The Ukraine-Russia talks are the other swing factor; if they hold, the refinery strikes may ease, and if they collapse, more Russian capacity could go offline. The pump question stays open too: gas prices already aren't budging, and another leg up in crude could push them higher into the fall.