By: OrePulse

Brent crude traded at $111.10 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) stood at $98.98 on Thursday, October 22, 2026, both up about 2 percent from the prior session, after Yemen's Houthi movement carried out attacks on an oil field and an international airport in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia ranks among the world's largest oil exporters, meaning disruptions to its energy infrastructure can have an outsized effect on global crude supply and pricing. The latest strikes added a fresh supply risk to a Gulf oil market that analysts describe as already under pressure from the wider conflict involving Iran and the United States.

The Houthis, a Yemeni armed political movement, have carried out repeated strikes on energy and transport infrastructure in the region since the broader conflict escalated. Thursday's attacks on the Saudi oil field and airport were the latest in that pattern, though no further details on casualties or damage were reported.

The United States government subsequently directed non-emergency personnel in Saudi Arabia to depart the country, underscoring heightened unease over security conditions in one of the world's leading oil-producing nations.

Iranian state media reported blasts in the south of Iran on Thursday, without describing their cause.

Iran's Foreign Minister, Abbas Araqchi, wrote in a published opinion piece that Tehran remained ready to defend itself and that the prospects for a peace settlement appeared slim. "To state the obvious, we have no trust whatsoever in the sincerity of the US administration's professed desire," Araqchi wrote, citing two occasions on which the United States struck Iran while nuclear negotiations were under way.

Iran's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said separately that peace negotiations could not move forward while the United States maintains what he called a blockade on Iran and continues to issue threats.

On the supply side, ING's commodity analysts pointed to an update from Kuwait Petroleum Corp's chief executive showing that the company's daily crude output had risen above 2 million barrels per day. Fuel production at the company, however, remains well below pre-war levels, the analysts said, even as crude volumes recover.

Brent serves as the global benchmark for crude pricing, while WTI functions as the primary U.S. benchmark; price moves in either are closely watched as indicators of shifts in worldwide supply costs.

The developments underscore the extent to which the unresolved Iran-US standoff and related armed activity in the Gulf continue to influence oil markets, alongside the direct supply risk posed by strikes on energy and transport infrastructure in Saudi Arabia.