The Brent crude oil barrel rises by over 1 dollar due to geopolitical tension.

Brent crude rose by over 1 dollar per barrel on Friday, as markets remained attentive to a potential direct conflict between Israel and Iran.

Brent crude rose by 1 dollar, or 1.1%, to 91.65 dollars per barrel, and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) in the United States traded at 87.34 dollars per barrel, up by 75 cents, or 0.87%. Both benchmarks touched their highest level since October on Thursday.

Brent and WTI are set to record an increase of over 4% this week, after Iran, the third-largest producer in OPEC, vowed to retaliate against Israel for an attack that killed senior Iranian military officials. If Iran directly attacks Israel, that has never happened before. It’s just another domino of geopolitical risk about to fall.

Continued Ukrainian drone attacks on refineries in Russia may have disrupted over 15% of Russian capacity, a NATO official said on Thursday, hitting the country’s fuel production.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies led by Russia, known as OPEC+, kept their oil supply policy unchanged this week and pressed some countries to increase compliance with production cuts.
The new drastic measures on quota compliance should lead to further production declines in the second quarter.

Meanwhile, unemployment rate in the US dropped one-tenth in March compared to February, reaching 3.8%, while job creation remained solid, at a time when the Fed is considering when to lower interest rates.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday that net job creation rose again, with 303,000 new positions created, 33,000 more than the previous month, after the February figure was revised to 270,000.