Oil prices dropped about 8% on Monday, March 23, 2026, after United States President Donald Trump said he would postpone any military strikes against Iranian power plants for five days.
Brent futures fell $8.92, or 8.0%, to $103.27 a barrel at 12:31 p.m. EDT (1631 GMT), while U.S. West Texas Intermediate lost $7.17, or 7.3%, to $91.06.
Extreme price changes in recent weeks – Brent closed at its highest since July 2022 on Friday – boosted both crude benchmarks’ historic or actual 30-day futures volatility to the highest levels since April 2022.
Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform that the U.S. and Iran had had “very good and productive” conversations over the past two days about a “complete and total resolution of hostilities in the Middle East.”
Trump suspends attacks on Iranian power plants after peace talks
Crude futures plunged almost 15% earlier in the session, but pared losses after Iran said it launched new attacks on Israel and other sites in the Middle East and denied it was talking with the United States.
The crisis in the Middle East is worse than the two oil shocks of the 1970s put together, Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, said on Monday.
The supply crunch has led to a temporary waiving of U.S. sanctions on Russian and Iranian oil already at sea.
Indian refiners plan to resume buying Iranian oil while refiners elsewhere in Asia are examining such a move, traders told Reuters.
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