Oil hovers around flatline amid fresh Iran tensions, U.S. crude stock decline in Oil & Companies News 10/06/2026 Oil prices oscillated around the flatline on Wednesday, as traders appeared to take a fresh exchange of strikes between the U.S. and Iran in stride. As of 05:47 ET (09:47 GMT), Brent oil futures expiring in August, the global oil benchmark, were mostly unchanged at $91.40 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were steady at $88.19 a barrel. Both contracts climbed in early Asian trading following the renewed hostilities in the Middle East. In the previous session, oil prices slipped roughly 3%, sliding to their lowest levels in seven weeks. Iran said on Wednesday it had targeted U.S. bases in Jordan and several Gulf states, in response to U.S. strikes retaliating against the downing of a American Apache helicopter that Washington blamed on an Iranian drone attack. Iran, for its part, has not claimed responsibility for the strike on the helicopter. At the same time, Israel carried on its assault on southern Lebanon, where it has been targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. The latest bout of strikes threatened to unravel tentative progress toward de-escalation, after Iran and Israel agreed earlier this week to halt attacks following appeals from Trump. Still, “markets don’t consider the exchange of fire between Washington and Tehran over the last [roughly] 48 hours to be a significant event, as evidenced by the very muted reaction in oil,” analysts at Vital Knowledge said. They noted that a White House official quoted by Politico had described the recent activity as a “bump in the road toward peace.” Hopes have swirled around the potential for the U.S. and Iran to reach a peace agreement which would end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital conduit for a fifth of the world’s oil that has been effectively shuttered for months. Against this backdrop of squeezed supplies, crude prices have floated well above pre-war level