Oil prices rose on Wednesday as the market weighed supply constraints from a storm heading for US oil-producing regions and attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis on Saudi Arabia against increased supplies of Middle East crude.

Brent futures LCOc1 rose 93 cents, or 0.92%, to $101.51 a barrel. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude rose 82 cents, or 0.92%, to $90.25.

US forecasters said on Tuesday a storm forming in the Gulf of Mexico would become the first Atlantic hurricane of 2026 within two days and would likely hit oil and gas producing facilities.

The offshore areas in the Gulf in the storm’s path produce 15% of US crude oil and 5% of the country’s natural gas.

KCM Trade chief analyst Tim Waterer said the storm was an “unwelcome complication for crude, raising the prospect of production and refining disruptions at a time when the market already has enough supply-side headaches”.

The storm could affect six refineries.

Refineries in US Gulf states account for about 50% of the national capacity of 18.2 million barrels per day (bpd).

US crude oil and gasoline inventories fell, while distillate stocks rose marginally last week, market sources said on Tuesday, citing data from the American Petroleum Institute.

Crude stocks fell by 2.09 million barrels in the week ended October 2.

Supply had been rising as the East-West pipeline hit 5.8 million barrels a day, according to Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman on Tuesday.

Around 12 million barrels per day of crude oil and 2 million bpd of refined products were leaving the Middle East on tankers in the last 7 to 10 days, the head of Vitol said.

However, Saudi Arabia’s airports in Jazan and Najran were targeted in two attacks on Monday evening, the Saudi aviation authority said, as hostilities between the kingdom and Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis escalated.

The attacks occurred as Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces pressed a major offensive to retake territory from the Houthis, after weeks of rebel advances, with Riyadh stepping up airstrikes in support of the campaign.

Attacks and refinery outages are “likely to keep the cracks elevated and scarcity will transmit to crude. Prices will stay elevated near a $100 level without any material de-escalation emerging,” said Mukesh Sahdev, chief oil analyst at X Analysts in Sydney.

US-Iran relations are no closer to repair with US President Donald Trump saying on Tuesday that nobody knew who was running Iran during the eight-month US-Israeli war with Iran.

“Their leaders are gone, their second group of leaders are gone, and the biggest problem I have is nobody knows who the hell is running the country,” Trump said.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said on Sunday Washington knows very well who their counterpart is in Iran and how the decision-making system in Iran works.

Dubai residential property sales reached more than Dhs72.6bn in Q3 of 2026, with about 34,000 transactions recorded during the period, real estate consultancy Cavendish Maxwell said on Tuesday.

Sales values fell 47 per cent from the same quarter last year, while transaction volumes declined 38 per cent, the consultancy said.

Cavendish Maxwell said the declines reflected weaker purchasing activity as delays between property purchases and their formal registration continued to work through the market data.

Off-plan properties remained the largest part of the market, accounting for 65 per cent of total residential sales value and 72 per cent of transactions during the quarter.

“The Q3 2026 data captures a mix of recent and earlier buying activity, reflecting the time between a purchase being agreed and formally registered as a sale,” said Ronan Arthur, director and head of residential valuation at Cavendish Maxwell.

“This confirms what we have suggested before: purchasing activity became more measured, with buyers being more cautious in the weeks and months following the start of the conflict.”

Arthur said Dubai’s underlying property demand remained intact, but near-term activity would be influenced by the pace of new project launches, regional uncertainty and a broader normalisation in buyer activity.

In September alone, residential sales were worth nearly Dhs23.2bn across about 10,300 transactions, according to the consultancy.

Residential sales values for the first nine months of 2026 reached Dhs292bn from 112,580 transactions.

Compared with the same period last year, sales values were down 27 per cent, and transaction volumes fell 23 per cent, Cavendish Maxwell said.

Read: Dubai real estate Q2 ’25 sales transactions hit Dhs184.9bn: Property Finder

Uber UAE and #MyDubai have launched a campaign inviting residents to share personal stories about the city during participating Uber rides, with selected contributions to be featured on official city channels.

The campaign, called Dubai Backseat Stories, runs until October 14.

Question cards placed in the backseats of participating vehicles encourage passengers to discuss local places, memories and experiences that have shaped their connection to Dubai.

Residents can share their responses using the hashtag #DubaiBackseatStories.

Selected participants whose stories are featured will receive Uber ride credits, the organisers said.

The “Our Stories, Our City” cards ask passengers about hidden gems tourists might miss, their first week living in Dubai and memorable conversations during journeys across the city.

The initiative extends #MyDubai, launched in 2014 by Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of the UAE, and Chairman of The Executive Council of Dubai, to create an autobiography of the emirate through stories shared on social media.

“#MyDubai has always been about telling the story of the city through the people who experience it every day,” said Aida Al Busaidy, vice president of social and consumer advocacy at Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism.

“Dubai Backseat Stories creates a simple, engaging way for residents to share the places they love, the memories they have made and the everyday moments that shape their connection to Dubai.”

The organisers said the collaboration aims to bring residents’ accounts to wider audiences, including through Uber’s international community.

“Through ‘Dubai Backseat Stories’, we’re proud to partner with #MyDubai to spotlight the personal stories and perspectives that make the city so special,” said Tala Nsouli, Uber’s general manager in the UAE.

Read: Dubai riders can now book fully driverless taxis on Uber

Saudi Aramco is studying additional crude oil export routes and exploring more overseas storage as prolonged disruption to the Strait of Hormuz strains global energy supplies, chief executive Amin Nasser said on Monday.

Speaking at the Energy Intelligence Forum in London, Nasser described the disruption as the most serious energy supply shock of his career and said the global supply resilience cushion had become increasingly thin.

The world entered the crisis with almost 10 billion barrels of global oil stocks, while nearly 3 billion barrels of gross oil supply had since been lost, equivalent to roughly half the crude and refined products that would normally have moved through Hormuz over the same period, Nasser said.

More than 1 billion barrels had been drawn from those stocks to mitigate the disruption, with most of that coming from onshore commercial inventories, he said.

Nasser said estimates suggested less than 6 billion barrels of commercial inventories remained, with the vast majority not practically available.

“The supply resilience cushion is scarily thin,” he said.

Emergency reserves could provide temporary support through the winter but could not resolve long-term supply constraints, Nasser said. Replenishing inventories while meeting demand could take up to two years once Hormuz fully reopened and confidence returned, he added.

Aramco was studying additional routes for crude exports and exploring more overseas storage to help cover short-term disruptions, Nasser said.

He said Aramco’s resilience also rested on strategic storage, spare production capacity, multiple crude grades, domestic gas storage, its tanker fleet through Bahri and its balance sheet.

The company’s local supply chain had provided more than 90 per cent of the materials used in asset restoration, he said.

Nasser said half of the world’s proven oil reserves were located in the Middle East, along with most global spare production capacity.

“Markets can diversify suppliers. They cannot diversify geology,” he said.

The region’s strategic importance was set to grow as other resource bases matured and new resources became potentially harder to find and less economically competitive, he added.

Nasser said the disruption had extended beyond crude markets, hitting ocean freight, tightening supply chains and contributing to shortages of commodities including aluminium, sulphur, helium and petrochemicals.

He cited an International Monetary Fund severe scenario in which global economic growth could fall to 2 per cent next year while inflation rises above 6 per cent.

“The longer the disruption continues, the risk of this happening only grows,” he said.

Nasser called for greater international cooperation to safeguard the free flow of energy and goods, including coordination on emergency response, supply planning, refinery and petrochemicals flexibility, joint stockpiling, supply chains and cybersecurity.

He also warned that publicly available information, including satellite imagery and shipping logs, was increasingly being weaponised against infrastructure and tankers.

Nasser said the industry should end what he called an era of cyclical under-investment and said resilience should be integral to judging a company’s performance alongside earnings, shareholder returns and environmental, social and governance measures.

He said the crisis had exposed what he called a false choice between energy security, affordability and sustainability, adding that Middle East oil and gas would remain central to the global energy system for decades.

Read: G7 agrees to coordinated 100 million barrel release to stabilise energy markets

A worker at a Russian anti-plague research institute has died from an unexplained form of pneumonia, prompting authorities to place nearly 200 people under medical observation amid unconfirmed reports of a possible pneumonic plague infection.

The woman worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and the Far East and died last week after developing what Russian authorities described as “pneumonia of undetermined origin”.

Igor Kobzev, governor of Russia’s Irkutsk region, said testing had not detected any microorganisms linked to the employee’s professional activities and that no new cases had been recorded among other workers at the institute.

“The sanitary-epidemiological situation” in the region remained stable, he said.

A hospital facility in Shelekhov, near Irkutsk, where the woman was reportedly treated has been placed under quarantine, while Russian media reported that nearly 200 people who had come into contact with her were being monitored as a precaution.

Russian authorities have not confirmed that the woman died from plague.

Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s consumer and public health watchdog, said a biological safety team had inspected the institute and found no evidence of an emergency involving pathogenic microorganisms.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov urged the public to rely on official statements rather than speculation surrounding the case.

“It is their official statements that should be relied upon — rather than paying heed to various rumours, speculations and the like,” Peskov said, referring to Rospotrebnadzor.

Unconfirmed Russian media reports have suggested the worker may have been exposed to the bacterium that causes plague either through a laboratory incident or following travel to an area where the disease occurs naturally among wild rodents. Neither explanation has been confirmed by authorities.

US monitoring suspected plague case

The incident has also drawn attention from the US and international health officials.

US President Donald Trump said Washington was looking “very strongly” at the case and offered US assistance if required.

“I hate to see them having it,” Trump said. “We’ll help. Everybody who has that kind of a problem, we’ll always help.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington was monitoring developments closely but stressed that there was no immediate cause for alarm.

“If something like that gets out, it can quickly spread,” Rubio said. “So we’re watching and monitoring it closely.”

The World Health Organisation said it was aware of reports that a laboratory worker had died from severe pneumonia but that no cause of death had been officially confirmed.

What is pneumonic plague?

Pneumonic plague is a severe form of plague caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, the same pathogen responsible for bubonic plague.

Unlike the more common bubonic form, pneumonic plague can spread between people through infectious respiratory particles following close contact with an infected person.

The WHO says pneumonic plague can be fatal within 18 to 24 hours after symptoms develop if left untreated, but antibiotics can successfully treat the disease when administered early.

Plague has not disappeared globally. Between 2019 and 2025, 10 countries reported 3,860 suspected human plague cases to the WHO. Six countries recorded confirmed cases, with 423 deaths reported among 3,847 suspected cases in those countries.

Most reported cases were concentrated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Madagascar.