Iran War Live Updates: Iraq Closes Oil Terminals Amid Growing Disruption to Global Supplies

 

Iran War Live Updates: Iraq Closes Oil Terminals Amid Growing Disruption to Global Supplies

Iran claimed responsibility for striking one of two oil tankers that were burning off the Iraqi coast on Thursday. The International Energy Agency warned that the war had caused “the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.”

 

Updated

March 12, 2026, 6:33 a.m. ET32 minutes ago

Rebecca Elliott  John Yoon Aurelien Breeden and Erika Solomon

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03/12/world/iran-war-news-trump-oil-israel

 

Here is the latest.

Iraq and Oman closed oil terminals on Thursday after two tankers were attacked and left burning off Iraq’s coast, as the International Energy Agency warned that the war in the Middle East had caused “the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.”

 

Oil prices surged again despite a coordinated effort by the United States and other major economies to calm markets by pledging on Wednesday to release 400 million barrels of oil from their emergency reserves.

 

Global supplies are set to plunge by 8 million barrels a day, the International Energy Agency said on Thursday in its monthly report, with traffic through the Strait of Hormuz plummeting to a trickle because of attacks on shipping and energy infrastructure.

 

Iran has said that it would not allow oil shipments that benefit the United States and its allies to pass through the Strait, which is normally a conduit for one-fifth of the world’s oil.

 

Since the war began on Feb. 28, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, a British maritime agency, has recorded at least 16 reports of attacks on ships operating in and around the Persian Gulf the Strait of Hormuz, and the Gulf of Oman.

 

On Thursday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps claimed responsibility for attacking one of the two tankers off Iraq’s coast, a Marshall Islands-flagged ship. In a statement cited by Iranian state media, the Guards said the ship had “disobeyed and ignored” warnings.

 

The statement did not mention the other tanker. Iraqi officials said that they believed that Iran was responsible for the attacks on the two tankers, which killed one person. Both tankers were used by Iraq for its own oil transport and were hit while in a ship-to-ship transfer area, according to the country’s oil export authority.

 

The U.K.M.T.O. said that a third ship was struck by an unknown projectile near Dubai. Security concerns on Thursday also forced the closure of an oil export terminal in Oman. It was unclear who was responsible for the attacks.

 

Iran’s military said it had launched attacks on Thursday morning targeting Israeli military bases and security services, according to Iranian state media. Waves of Israeli airstrikes also shook Beirut, the Lebanese capital, and Tehran, the Iranian capital, on Wednesday and into Thursday morning. The Israeli military launched a new wave of strikes against Iran, saying it was targeting government infrastructure.

 

Bombing was particularly intense in and around Beirut, where Lebanese government officials said that heavy Israeli strikes had killed at least seven people and injured dozens more. The area is a stronghold for Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia. Thousands of civilians have fled in recent days.

 

The Israeli bombardment in Lebanon, which started after Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in support of Tehran, has killed more than 600 people and displaced more than 800,000 over the last several days, according to Lebanese officials.

 

Several Persian Gulf countries said they intercepted attacks from Iran on Wednesday. Saudi Arabia said it had destroyed two drones that were heading toward the kingdom’s huge Shaybah oil field. In Iraq, an Italian military base in Erbil was hit by a missile, but there were no casualties or injuries, according to Italy’s defense minister.

 

Here’s what else we are covering:

 

Death toll: The number of people who have died in Iran is unclear. Iran’s representative to the United Nations, Amir Saeed Iravani, told the Security Council on Wednesday that more than 1,348 civilians had been killed. Dozens have also died in Iranian drone and missile attacks on Gulf countries and Israel.

 

War financing: Pentagon officials told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill that the estimated the cost of the war had exceeded $11.3 billion in the first six days, according to three people familiar with the briefing. The number omitted several aspects of the operation, so lawmakers expect the total to grow considerably. Read more ›

 

Trump’s remarks: President Trump, who has sent contradictory signals about how long the war will last, projected confidence about the war during an economic speech in Kentucky. But he has also said only Tehran’s “unconditional surrender” would end the war, and Iran has shown no sign of halting its attacks. Read more ›

 

Banks threatened: Major financial institutions, including Citi and HSBC, temporarily closed offices in the Persian Gulf after Iran said it would target U.S. and Israeli banks in the region. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps made the threat after an airstrike hit a building in Tehran linked to Bank Sepah, an institution founded in 1922 as Iran’s first modern domestic bank. Read more ›

 

Deadly school strike: The United States was responsible for the strike on an Iranian school that killed 175 people, most of them children, based on outdated targeting information, according to the preliminary findings of a Pentagon investigation. Mr. Trump had suggested that Iran could be to blame.