Commodities
Oil Market Long Numb to War Risk Confronts Weekend of Worry
An oil tanker prepares to transport crude oil to export markets in Bandar Abbas, Iran, in 2018.
Photographer: Ali Mohammadi/BloombergThe past two years of escalating tensions in the Middle East have taught oil traders to be sanguine about the risk of disruption to oil supplies.
The barrage of headlines has revived memories of the political upheavals and prices spikes of the 1970s — and yet even when oil prices have jumped, it inevitably proved short-lived. As Iran and Israel traded volleys of missiles in April last year and again in October, Middle Eastern oil continued to flow to the global market unaffected.