Crude oil prices spiked violently above US$119 per barrel on Monday — benchmarks unseen since 2022 — before retreating sharply to the $100 range in a turbulent, whipsaw trading session that laid bare the deep market anxieties fueled by the intensifying military confrontation between the United States, Israel, and Iran. The prospect of prolonged disruptions to critical maritime shipping corridors, compounded by potential supply contractions from one of the world's most strategically vital petroleum-producing regions, has prompted institutional investors and energy market participants globally to urgently reprice a systemic vulnerability that commodity markets have historically been slow to fully account for: structural energy supply risk. For energy-dependent Asian economies — which collectively represent the world's largest bloc of crude oil importers — the geopolitical tremors now emanating from the Middle East carry outsized macroeconomic consequences, threatening to reignite inflationary pressures, strain current account balances, and force central banks into difficult monetary policy recalibrations at a moment when regional growth trajectories remain fragile.
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