Oil Rises, Stocks Fall as Wall Street Doubts Peace Bid

The news for the energy industry wasn’t pleasant Monday. Bloomberg reported that Kuwait declared a further force majeure on shipments of crude oil and refined products, acknowledging it would not be immediately able to meet its full obligations to customers even when the Strait of Hormuz reopens.

State-run Kuwait Petroleum Corp. invoked the legal clause, which allows it not to fulfill contract terms because of circumstances outside its control, at the start of the US-Israel war with Iran. With strait traffic at a near-standstill, storage tanks in the region continue to fill up as global oil markets enter uncharted territory. The new notice by Kuwait is the latest dark signpost for a Gulf industry being brought to its knees by a conflict now approaching the two-month mark.