Crude oil prices surged again this morning after Saudi Arabia's Energy Ministry ordered the temporary closure of the East-West Pipeline as a precautionary measure following multiple attacks. As of 5:27 a.m. Thailand time, the October contract for WTI crude jumped 2.8% to 102.87 dollars per barrel, while November Brent crude rose 3.1% to 107.87 dollars per barrel. Earlier, on Friday, September 11, WTI closed at 100.05 dollars per barrel, down 2.43 dollars, or 2.37%, and Brent closed at 104.61 dollars per barrel, down 3.02 dollars, or 2.81%. Over the past week, WTI surged nearly 10% and Brent nearly 9% following attacks on ships in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Oman's foreign minister said a meeting between Iran and Gulf Arab states to discuss establishing a temporary shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz has been postponed in order to build consensus and suitable conditions for constructive negotiations. President Donald Trump said during a visit to Ireland that the war between the United States and Iran is likely to end soon after the November midterm elections, and he expects energy prices to fall sharply once the war ends. On U.S. inflation, the headline consumer price index for August rose 0.4% month on month and 3.4% year on year, in line with a Dow Jones survey, while core CPI rose 0.3% from the previous month, slightly above market expectations, and was up 2.4% year on year. On monetary policy, the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan are facing key tests this week. Markets see a 98% chance that the BOJ will raise rates, and Nikkei reported that the BOJ plans to lift its policy rate from 1% to 1.25%, which would be the highest level since 1995. The FedWatch tool indicates that markets expect the Fed to raise rates twice, by 0.25 points each time, before the end of this year, from the current range of 3.50-3.75% held since December 2025. The Fed is scheduled to meet on September 15-16, followed by the BOJ on September 17-18. Chinese President Xi Jinping called on BRICS members to jointly push for a political resolution of conflicts in the Middle East leading to a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire, and proposed establishing an open-source AI community within BRICS to promote cooperation on large language models. He spoke at the BRICS leaders' summit in India, which took place ahead of a meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House later this month. Meanwhile, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company will not go public this year, citing artificial intelligence safety, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urged AI companies to slow the pace of developing their most advanced models, questioning what would happen if China does not act in the same direction.
