Good morning and welcome back to the City AM liveblog.
This morning Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, rose 1.8 per cent to $104.98 per barrel during early trading in Asia.
It follows President Trump stating he is unwilling to make a deal with Iran and his energy secretary warning the war will end in a few weeks but the oil prices would remain “elevated” in the meantime.
“Depending upon the timing and the manner upon which this conflict comes to an end, we’re going to see some elevated pricing until we get there,” Chris Wright said.
Meanwhile the President has said: “Iran wants to make a deal, and I don’t want to make it because the terms aren’t good enough yet,” adding that any terms will have to be “very solid.”
In a bombastic post on Truth Social, Trump has also demanded that China, France, Japan, South Korea and the UK send war ships to the region to stop it being under threat from Iranian missiles.
On the home front the UK’s poorest households are set to land some reprieve after Rachel Reeves told the Times she “found the money” to announce a support package for people not supported by the energy price cap.
But as far as drilling the North Sea, Ed Miliband has shot down any hopes – despite calls from Octopus boss Greg Jackson and manufacturing industry body Make UK.
The energy secretary said: “Some people want to go around and pretend that if we only we draw more [oil and gas from the North Sea,] prices would go down. That is totally false.”
We’ll be bringing you the latest on this and more.
Here’s a few of our top headlines from the last few days.
