Oil prices plunge after U.S. official says Navy escorted oil ship

A sharp drop in oil prices continued Tuesday morning, even after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the day would see America’s “most intense day of strikes inside Iran.”

U.S. crude oil plunged more than 16%, slipping below $77 per barrel. International Brent crude also dropped 17% to below $80 per barrel.

Oil’s dramatic move lower accelerated after U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright wrote on X that the “U.S. Navy successfully escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz to ensure oil remains flowing to global markets.”

Shortly after the post was written and oil markets moved on it, the post from Wright was deleted. NBC News has requested clarification from the Energy Department on the status of Navy escorts of oil tankers.

Still, U.S. crude oil prices are up more than 15% since the start of the war.

Stocks also rose on optimism the global energy crunch would ease up soon. The S&P 500 jumped 0.7% in afternoon trading, while the Nasdaq composite was traded higher by 0.9% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average popped 450 points.

Energy ministers from leading industrialized nations met Tuesday morning to discuss options to respond to rising crude oil prices, but they did not announce a strategic release of petroleum reserves afterward, which was widely viewed as a front-line response in the effort to calm global markets.

After the G7 meeting, French Finance Minister Roland Lescure, who also oversees energy policy, said officials had asked the International Energy Agency to “look into details that we could have at hand, were we to decide to use” international oil reserves to calm markets.

“Everyone’s willing to stabilize the market, and everyone’s willing to explore any ways to do so,” Lescure added, noting that the United States and France were aligned on the issue.

Alluding to the absence of any news about a release, Lescure said, “The … potential release of inventories is not the only way forward. And as you know, the best way to solve the problem is to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.”

In a separate statement, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said there would be a meeting of member governments later Tuesday “to assess the current security of supply and market conditions to inform a subsequent decision on whether to make emergency stocks of IEA countries available to the market.”

A U.S. official told NBC News on Monday that President Donald Trump was reviewing a number of other options to drive down prices, including restricting U.S. exports, intervening in the futures market and lifting some requirements of the Jones Act, which requires that domestic fuel be carried only on U.S.-flagged ships.

The White House has also repeatedly said that the spike in energy prices was only “short-term” and would drop after the objectives of the war were met.

“Policy measures may have limited impact on oil prices unless safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz is assured,” JPMorgan Chase commodities analysts said Tuesday morning.

The strait normally carries ships responsible for more than 20% of the world’s oil supply to the global market.

So far, since the war started, retail gas prices have risen 50 cents, a visible reminder to consumers about the impact it is having already.

“The only truly durable and comprehensive solution would be to secure the Strait of Hormuz,” they added.