Oil Surge

Brent crude touched $110 a barrel Friday, its highest price since May, as Iran escalated attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.

It eased later, settling at $109.86, a gain of 3.7% on the day, CNBC reported. West Texas Intermediate rose 3.5% to close at $101.41 a barrel. WTI climbed more than 10% this week. Brent is up nearly 5%.

A Saudi military spokesman said forces shot down several missiles fired over the Red Sea on Friday, one aimed at the Yanbu export terminal, CNBC reported. Three more drones were downed over Riyadh and southern Saudi Arabia, the military added. Strikes, day after day. Houthi fighters allied with Iran have launched repeated strikes on Saudi Arabia this week. One hit an administrative building at Saudi Aramco in Dhahran on Tuesday, the kingdom's energy ministry said, according to CNBC.

Iran has targeted at least nine tankers and cargo ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz since Sunday in an effort to cut off oil exports through the waterway, CNBC reported. On Wednesday, Iranian forces sank the container ship GFS Pride, U.S. Central Command said. Its crew got off safely, Singapore's maritime authority said. Earlier in the week, Brent had already climbed to $107.25 a barrel, a level not seen since Sept. 16, after Iranian officials said a separate tanker was struck and caught fire in the strait, Cointelegraph reported.

An energy ceasefire that President Donald Trump had helped arrange between Russia and Ukraine broke down this week, CNBC reported. Russian forces kept striking Ukrainian infrastructure despite the agreement. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine would go back to hitting Russian refineries.

Diesel has gotten more expensive all year because of the refinery strikes on both fronts. The fuel averaged $6.33 a gallon in the U.S. on Friday, over 70% higher than a year earlier, according to AAA data cited by CNBC. U.S. crude also got a lift from a steep drop in commercial inventories, down more than 8 million barrels for the week that ended Oct. 9, after Gulf Coast production was shut in during Hurricane Isaias, the Energy Information Administration said.

DW has tracked this pattern all year. Since Iran effectively closed the Hormuz chokepoint in late February, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have rerouted some crude by pipeline to other ports, DW reported.

Flows through the strait have slowed again after nearly returning to prewar levels in September. Shipments averaged 9.4 million barrels a day for the week that ended Wednesday, about 70% of the pre-war pace, according to Kpler data cited by CNBC.

This week's attacks have left three seafarers hurt and two others missing, the International Maritime Organization said, according to CNBC.