Oil prices hit 4-mth high on US-Iran tensions, winter supply disruptions in Oil & Companies News 29/01/2026 Oil prices rose to a four-month high in Asian trade on Thursday, extending recent gains as rising geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and Iran saw traders attach a greater risk premium to the commodity. Continued supply disruptions in the U.S., due to extreme cold in several parts of the country, also underpinned oil, as did weakness in the dollar. The greenback remained weak after the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged as expected. Brent oil futures for March rose 0.8% to $68.96 a barrel by 20:38 ET (01:38 GMT), while West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 0.9% to $63.75 a barrel. Trump seen considering more action against Iran Reports on Wednesday evening showed U.S. President Donald Trump was considering new military action against Iran, including potential strikes on its leaders and nuclear infrastructure. Trump had earlier on Wednesday called on the country to reengage with the U.S. and drop its nuclear ambitions, with Tehran rejecting said calls and threatening retaliation. This came just days after U.S. ships arrived in the Middle East, with Trump recently claiming that another armada was on its way to the region. Heightened geopolitical tensions in the Middle East saw traders attach a greater risk premium to crude, as markets feared potential disruptions in Iranian crude output from any conflict. US winter storm disrupts supplies, inventories shrink Oil clocked strong gains this week as a winter storm caused heavy snowfall and sub-zero temperatures in vast swathes of the country, disrupting crude production. Reports showed at least 2 million barrels of crude per day of production being taken offline in the past week, while exports from the Gulf coast were also disrupted. Extended output disruptions are expected to tighten U.S. oil supplies, with an unexpected drop in U.S. oil inventories suggesting that such a trend was already underway. U.S. oil inventories shrank by 2.295 million barrels in the week to January 23, much more than expectations for a drop of 0.2 million barrels, government data showed on Wednesday. Source: Investing.com 2026-01-29 hellenicshippingnews... window.___gcfg = {lang: 'en-US'}; (function(w, d, s) { function go(){ var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0], load = function(url, id) { if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.src = url; js.id = id; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }; load('//connect.facebook.net/en/all.js#xfbml=1', 'fbjssdk'); load('https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js', 'gplus1js'); load('//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js', 'tweetjs'); } if (w.addEventListener) { w.addEventListener("load", go, false); } else if (w.attachEvent) { w.attachEvent("onload",go); } }(window, document, 'script')); tweet Share