Oil prices extend rally to near six-month high amid Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia

Account subscription benefits alongside Premium Stories, Editorials, Opinions and more.

Unlock these with Subscription

The View From India Looking at World Affairs from the Indian perspective.

First Day First Show News and reviews from the world of cinema and streaming.

Today's Cache Your download of the top 5 technology stories of the day.

Science For All The weekly newsletter from science writers takes the jargon out of science and puts the fun in!

Data Point Decoding the headlines with facts, figures, and numbers

THEdge At the cutting edge of education and careers

Health Matters Ramya Kannan writes to you on getting to good health, and staying there

Gender Agenda Stories from beyond the binary.

The Hindu On Books Books of the week, reviews, excerpts, new titles and features.

Updated - October 23, 2026 06:13 pm IST - New Delhi

A drone view shows fuel vessels docked at the Baniyas oil terminal in Baniyas, Syria, October 12, 2026. | Photo Credit: Reuters

Oil prices extended their rally from Thursday (October 22, 2026) as it breached the $115 per barrel-mark Thursday a day after Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia’s civilian and energy infrastructure.

The latest escalation has spiralled oil prices to a near six-month high amid renewed tensions about disruptions to global oil supplies.

At the time of writing Friday (October 23, 2026) evening, benchmark Brent crude futures for December delivery had scaled an intraday high of $115.14 per barrel, up 1.74% from their previous close.

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was also up 1.81% at $101.26 per barrel.

India’s crude oil basket averaged $119.99 per barrel on Friday, according to data from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC).

The Indian basket has averaged $120.08 per barrel till date in the ongoing month.

The latest benchmark prices are much higher than the Reserve Bank of India’s projections of crude oil prices being at $95 per barrel in the second half of the fiscal year.

An increase in crude oil prices elevates concerns of persisting inflation.

According to estimates by Vipul Jindal and Tanay Dalal, economists at private-lender Axis Bank, public sector support of approximately 1.7% of GDP would cushion shocks when average oil prices stay at $100 per barrel this year.

“Every $10 per barrel increase in crude [but pump prices steady], will raise support by 20 bps,” they estimate.

Amid higher input gas pressures, Adani Total Gas on Friday increased the prices of compressed natural gas (CNG) at its retail stations by ₹4.45 per kg.

CNG at its outlets in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad is now priced at ₹98.47 per kg, ₹102.6 per kg in Haryana’s Faridabad and ₹106.4 per kg in Rajasthan’s Udaipur.

On a standalone basis, the company operates 723 refuelling outlets across the country.

In a statement, it explained that the price revision was necessitated by a “substantial rise in natural gas procurement costs, reflecting elevated global gas prices amid geopolitical developments, lower availability of domestic gas and ongoing supply curtailments”.

It added separately that spot purchases of liquefied natural gas have increased from $10-12 per MMBtu in February to about $30 per MMBtu at present.

Terms & conditions | Institutional Subscriber

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences.

They cannot be abusive or personal.

Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform.

If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles.

If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments.

Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.