Oil prices extend gains as Trump comments diminish hopes for a U.S.-Iran peace deal

Oil prices extend gains as Trump comments diminish hopes for a U.S.-Iran peace deal

Satellite view of the Salalah oil storage fire in Oman. An Iranian drone strike on March 11 ignited the blaze, sending a plume over the Gulf of Oman’s strategic port amid the wider conflict with Iran. Imaged March 13, 2026.

Gallo Images | Orbital Horizon | Copernicus Sentinel Data 2026 | Getty Images

Oil prices rose Tuesday as U.S. President Donald Trump said that the ceasefire with Iran was on life support after rejecting Tehran’s counterproposal to end the war, signaling the conflict in the Middle East could drag on.

International benchmark  Brent crude futures for July gained 0.96% to $105.21 a barrel. U.S.  West Texas Intermediate  futures for June rose 1.10% to $99.15 per barrel.

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Brent crude prices

Trump told reporters that the state of the ceasefire is “unbelievably weak,” calling Iran’s counterproposal to end the conflict “garbage.”

“I would say the ceasefire is on massive life support, where the doctor walks in and says, ‘Sir, your loved one has approximately a 1% chance of living,'” Trump said.

Since the U.S. and Israeli-led war against Iran started on Feb. 28, WTI and Brent are both up more than 40%. “Oil prices have been volatile and can rise further if US-Iran dealmaking remains thorny,” Citi said in a note.

Re-escalation in the Iran war is certainly possible, Henry Wilkinson, geopolitical and security intelligence service firm Dragonfly’s chief intelligence officer, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Tuesday, adding that Trump may ask Chinese President Xi Jinping to press Iran to accept U.S. terms later this week during talks between China and the U.S.

The oil market will take until 2027 to normalize if the Strait of Hormuz stays blocked beyond mid-June, Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser warned Monday.

“If the Strait of Hormuz opens today, it will still take months for the market to rebalance, and if its opening is delayed by a few more weeks, then normalization will last into 2027,” Nasser, who heads the world’s largest oil company, told investors on the company’s first-quarter earnings call.

— CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger  and Spencer Kimball contributed to this report.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/12/oil-prices-today-brent-wti-trump-iran-war-hormuz.html