Oil prices jumped and equities slid Thursday as hopes for a peace deal between the US and Iran wavered after Tehran rejected Washington’s bid to wind down the nearly four-week war.

Markets had been buoyed this week by US President Donald Trump’s announcement that strikes targeting Iran’s energy infrastructure would be postponed, adding that the two sides were in peace talks.

But uncertainty over the talks and the virtual closure of the Strait of Hormuz — through which around 20 percent of oil and liquefied natural gas passes — have cast a shadow over market sentiment.

“The market rollercoaster continues,” said Joshua Mahony, chief market analyst at Scope Markets.

Crude prices rallied more than three percent on Thursday, with Brent crude above $106 per barrel and WTI around $93.

( VANGUARD)

Photo: Ambassador Idaere Gogo Ogan

‎The Niger Delta Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Trade, Mines and Agriculture (NDCCITMA) has unveiled plans to attract up to five billion dollars structured investments to the oil-producing region in five years.

The Chairman of NDCCITMA, Ambassador Idaere Gogo Ogan, made the disclosure at a pre-summit conference ahead of the Niger Delta Economic and Investment Summit in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

He said that the initiative would catalyse no fewer than 500,000 direct and indirect jobs as well as spur investments and create wealth.

‎He said the summit with the theme, “Driving Investment, Innovation, and Industrial Growth in the Niger Delta”, slated for Port Harcourt, would deliberate on investment mobilisation, enterprise growth, industrial expansion, and regional coordination.

The President of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has expressed concerns about the ongoing Middle East crisis taking many countries back to the COVID19 era’s work from home.

Dangote stated this on Monday, after a meeting with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at his residence in Lagos.

While expressing concern about the economic impact of oil price uncertainty, Africa’s Richest man noted that Nigeria and other African countries might be forced to start working from home, just like the COVID19 era.

Dangote called for prayers and international intervention to end the conflict which has affected the price of fuel and other energy sources in the country.

He said, “In some countries today, what they’ve done is ask everybody to work from home because they cannot afford it.“I think in Indonesia, they only go to work four days a week. And they will look at the situation. If it doesn’t improve, they will ask everybody not to go to work anymore. We will do like that time of COVID, where people will now go and work from home,” Dangote said.

It’s not only energy. Some people will try to take a chance and say, ‘Ah, this is an opportunity. So, let me make money. So, if this thing doesn’t de-escalate, it is going to keep going up and governments cannot really now go and add salaries also. So, people will really feel the pinch,” he said.

Dangote explained that the crisis would hit hardest at ordinary Africans operating small businesses, “People who are barbers, people who are doing bread, people who have industries who have to pay their own generator, I mean, you can see what is happening,” he said.