Brent crude, the main international oil benchmark, rose above $110 a barrel shortly after 2:30 p.m. Eastern time on Friday, October 16, its highest level since May. It closed the week at $109.86, its highest closing price since May 19.
West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark, gained 3.5% on Friday to close at $101.41, crossing $100 for the first time since September.
Supply concerns are behind the rally. Security risks to shipping in the Gulf have kept traders on edge, and diesel is the tightest part of the market, with refining capacity outside the region reduced and refineries in the United States and Europe already running close to their limits. Diesel futures rose more than 1% on Friday. Mason Mendez, a global real assets analyst at Wells Fargo, said “the need to rebuild depleted global inventories could create an additional source of demand.”
The jump in energy prices weighed on stocks. Technology shares lost more than $1 trillion in value on Friday as worries about heavy borrowing for artificial intelligence, high interest rates and rising oil returned together. The Nasdaq 100 fell 2.5% and is now about 7% below the record it set the week before. The S&P 500 dropped 1% and the Russell 2000 lost 1.6%, while the Philadelphia semiconductor index fell 3.8%, its eighth straight daily decline and its longest losing run since 2008.
Higher fuel costs also feed into inflation, which makes another interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve this year more likely. The Fed raised rates by a quarter of a percentage point in September.
