il prices have eased after jumping earlier amid renewed violence in the Strait of Hormuz.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell more than 2 percent on Friday, after rising as much as 4 percent following the International Maritime Organization’s decision to pause its planned evacuation of ships stranded around the critical waterway.
The IMO suspended its evacuation plan after a cargo vessel reported being struck by an “unknown projectile” while attempting to cross the strait near the Omani coast.
Brent futures for August delivery stood at $73.85 per barrel as of 07:30 GMT, after topping $76 on Thursday.
The price of Brent, which dropped sharply after the United States and Iran last week signed a memorandum of understanding on ending nearly four months of war, is currently hovering about 2 percent above its pre-conflict level.
Asian markets suffered steep losses on Friday, with key indices in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan falling sharply.
Seoul’s Kospi, the best-performing major index this year, closed down 5.8 percent, after plunging as much as 9 percent earlier, dragged lower by a sell-off in tech stocks.
Memory chip giants SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics fell 8.4 percent and 5.3 percent, respectively.
The sell-off came after Apple sharply increased prices for its Macs and iPads due to surging memory chip costs, stirring fears that the pricier devices may crimp ferocious DRAM and NAND flash demand.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell more than 4 percent, while the Taiex in Taipei dropped about 3.6 percent.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index was 1.7 percent in the red.
Thursday’s attack in the strait, through which about one-fifth of global oil and liquified natural gas supplies transit in peacetime, dented hopes for a return to normal shipping in the Gulf after a resurgence in traffic in recent days.
On Wednesday, 70 vessels transited the waterway, a more than twofold increase from the previous day and the highest daily figure since March 1, according to ship tracking platforms MarineTraffic and Kpler.
Source: aljazeera