US crude futures jump more than 4% in pre-market trade as US-Iran talks halt
Prices touch $96.44 a barrel before the open after Iran's New York delegation ruled out further talks.
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Chart: USO, a fund that tracks crude, one-minute prices, three sessions
UpdateMonday, September 28, 2026 at 6:50 AM ET
Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said forces hostile to Iran do not dare operate in the Gulf, and predicted the Arabian Sea would soon be free of them. The diplomatic picture had shifted repeatedly in recent weeks. Iran's president Masoud Pezeshkian said talks with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner centred on Iran's rights under international law, and a senior Iranian official said Tehran could return to a memorandum of understanding with Washington. Iran had also denied that talks were happening at all, calling reports of them market management, according to Fars. A senior Iranian source said Tehran and Washington had traded messages tying Strait of Hormuz access to an easing of
US crude futures rose more than 4% in pre-market trading, touching $96.44 a barrel, after Iran's delegation in New York ruled out talks with the United States, according to IRNA.
The halt follows weeks of negotiations that Iranian officials had described as increasingly positive. Those talks broke down after President Trump rejected Iran's nuclear proposal.
The move marks a sharp reversal from the trend into the weekend. Brent had fallen $3 a barrel on hopes for a truce in the days before this move, and a rise in oil prices last week tied to a Houthi claim and a stockpile draw was seen as part of a broader pattern rather than a new trigger.
The spike removes, for now, the supply relief that markets had been pricing in as talks progressed, and puts Strait of Hormuz risk back on traders' screens. Washington has signaled it controls the strait and is not rushing to concede, suggesting the move reflects a jump in uncertainty rather than any shift in the underlying balance of power.