Crude Prices Plunge Amid U.S. Midterm Election Results

Crude oil prices fell sharply on Wednesday morning following the release of U.S. midterm election results, with West Texas Intermediate (WTI) trading at $87.17 a barrel and Brent crude at $94.26 a barrel.

The decline came amid political developments in the United States, where Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections.

According to Reuters, investors are awaiting Washington’s next move in the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran after President Donald Trump’s Republican Party lost control of Congress.

On Wednesday, Trump said the war with Iran may have contributed to the Republican Party’s electoral defeat.

Vice President JD Vance also wrote on X that the war was responsible for the losses, adding that “any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.”

Trump had earlier told the Financial Times that Washington had no immediate plans to strike Iran.

In a written statement, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said U.S. hostility towards Iran would persist regardless of which political party was in power in Washington.

“The U.S. sees the end of its hegemony as distant; we see it as near,” he said.

A senior Iranian official told Reuters on Tuesday that Iran and the United States remained far from reaching an agreement to end the war.

With diesel prices remaining elevated, Washington is also taking steps to ease pressure on fuel markets.

The U.S. Department of Energy said it would loan 300,000 barrels from the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve to four companies, representing nearly a third of the stockpile.

The move follows pressure from senators from both parties after diesel prices surged above $6.50 a gallon.

Heating oil futures subsequently fell by around 7%.