Oil prices fell further today after settling down more than 2% in the previous session, with investors brushing off the impact of the latest US sanctions against Iran. Brent crude futures fell 90 cents, or 1.0%, to $91.27 a barrel this morning, while US West Texas Intermediate crude was down 76 cents, or 0.

9%, at $84.25. Both contracts settled lower yesterday, with US crude oil falling to a one-week low on profit taking after prices rallied over the previous two weeks. "The market seems largely unfazed by Washington's push for tighter economic pressure on Iran, with traders treating the US effort to nudge partners away from Iranian trade as marginal rather than market moving," said ING commodity strategists in a note today.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent yesterday unveiled an expansion of sanctions to cut off Iran's economic lifeline, to force an end to the war between them, telling countries they would need to sever their business ties or risk being cut out of the dollar-based financial system.

However, he declined to identify the countries that would be targeted or reveal when those penalties would take effect, saying he would instead provide them time to comply with the new directive. While US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the US would not rule out using military force against Iran, the country is turning towards more economic coercion, which analysts said removed concerns about threats to Middle Eastern oil supply because of the war.

"Markets appear to be pricing economic pressure as a lower-risk path for physical supply than kinetic action, which is why the initial reaction was for oil to move lower rather than spike higher," said Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at KCM. However, he warned, "Iran still retains the ability to respond by disrupting shipping, which continues to keep a residual premium in the oil price.

" Highlighting those threats, an oil tanker was struck today by an unidentified projectile and disabled about nine nautical miles (16.7km) northeast of Oman's Ash Shishah, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said. Iran is still maintaining it should have control over the key Strait of Hormuz, which before the war started in February typically carried cargoes equal to about 20% of global oil use.

It named 45 tankers yesterday that had broken its rules on crossing the strait and threatened action against them, including confiscating their cargoes. The supply disruptions as a result of the US-Israeli war on Iran that started on February 28 have caused countries to draw down their commercial and strategic reserves.

The US Department of Energy yesterday reported stocks of crude oil in the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve fell by about 3.7 million barrels to 289.7 million barrels last week, the lowest since November 1982.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States is urging beefed-up U.N. sanctions against the warring parties in Sudan to build pressure on them to negotiate an end to the fighting that has killed at least 59,000 people, displaced some 13 million and pushed many parts of the African nation into famine.

President Donald Trump’s senior adviser for Arab and African affairs, Massad Boulos, told the U.N. Security Council on Monday that financial, military and political support given to either the government forces or the rival paramilitary group, Rapid Support Forces, remains a driver of the conflict, now in its fourth year.

Boulos did not name any countries providing that support. Egypt has been a vocal supporter of Sudan’s military, while the United Arab Emirates is accused by U.N. experts and human rights groups of providing arms to the RSF, which it has repeatedly denied.

He said the Security Council has the tools to curtail the provision of “a tremendous and increasing amount of military support to both warring parties” from “numerous external actors.” U.N.-backed human rights investigators two years ago called for the expansion of an arms embargo on Sudan’s long-restive western Darfur region — scene of mass atrocities between 2003 and 2005 — to cover the entire country.

Boulos said a proposed U.S. resolution before the U.N. Security Council would expand the arms embargo throughout Sudan. It also would apply “to all parties operating in the territory” and reaffirm that drones and related technologies are part of the arms embargo.

Experts say Sudan's army and the RSF are competing to obtain new drone models. Rights groups have said the use of unmanned aircraft has become increasingly common in the northeast African nation’s war. The U.S. draft resolution, obtained by The Associated Press, deplores “the continuous influx of external military assistance, weapons, and ammunition to the warring parties, which is prolonging the conflict and undermining mediation efforts,” including launching drones and unmanned aerial systems from third countries.

The proposed resolution demands that all countries “cease any direct or indirect support to the warring parties, be it logistical, financial or military, which enables conflict to continue.” The conflict exploded from a power struggle that emerged following Sudan’s transition to democracy after an uprising forced the military ouster of longtime autocratic President Omar al-Bashir in April 2019.

Tensions boiled over three years later between Sudan’s military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, who chairs the ruling sovereign council, and RSF commander Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who was Burhan’s deputy. Burhan said Monday that new sanctions would not deter his troops from carrying on with their war until all RSF-controlled areas are captured, according to the army-controlled SUNA news agency.

“Our souls and destiny are in God’s hands,” he said while attending the graduation ceremony of new police officers in the capital, Khartoum. “Our message to those staying in hotels abroad and cheering at sanctions that are meant to subjugate the Sudanese people is the following: The people will not be broken, but we will break and defeat you.

” U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo told the Security Council that despite numerous diplomatic efforts to get government and paramilitary leaders to start negotiations and end hostilities, “the parties remain locked in a zero-sum military logic.

” "Greater international attention and action are urgently needed for them to change that calculus,” she said. ___ Associated Press writer Noha Elhennawy in Cairo contributed to this report.

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