Oil prices up after incident involving vessel off Oman coast

Oil prices up after incident involving vessel off Oman coast

Oil prices rose on Wednesday, erasing earlier losses, after an incident involving a commercial vessel off the coast of Oman, but rising COVID-19 cases in China capped gains.

Brent crude futures gained 65 cents, or 0.7%, to $94.51 a barrel by 0854 GMT, and U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose 35 cents, or 0.4%, to $87.27 a barrel. Both benchmarks fell more than $1 earlier in the session.

The United States Navy's Fifth Fleet said it aware of an incident on Wednesday in the Gulf of Oman involving a commercial vessel, Commander Timothy Hawkins told Reuters.

The Associated Press had reported that a Liberian-flagged oil tanker operated by the Singapore-based Eastern Pacific Shipping was struck in an exploding drone attack off the Gulf of Oman.

Oil prices settled higher on Tuesday after oil supply to parts of Europe via a section of the Druzhba pipeline was temporarily suspended, according to oil pipeline operators in Hungary and Slovakia.

The disruption was concurrent with an explosion in eastern Poland near the Ukraine border that killed two people and raised the possibility that the Russian-Ukraine conflict could spill over.

But after the initial "knee-jerk rally in oil prices, the tepid market follow-through reflects the significant prudence that