US weighs oil futures market action to combat price spikes, White House official says

WASHINGTON – The US Treasury Department is expected to announce measures soon to combat rising energy prices in the wake of

the Iran conflict,

including potential action involving the

oil futures market,

a senior White House official said.

The potential move would mark an unusual attempt by Washington to influence energy prices through financial markets rather than physical oil supplies, as officials race to blunt the political and economic impact of growing fuel costs.

The details of the plan are unclear and the White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters, declined to provide specifics, saying they did not want to get ahead of the Treasury announcement.

US crude futures have jumped nearly 21 per cent since the war with Iran started on Feb 28, as the spreading conflict disrupted Middle East supplies. The national average cost of gasoline has risen 27 US cents since last week to US$3.25 per gallon, according to AAA, a US travel organisation that tracks fuel prices.

The idea of US intervention in the futures market reflects the background of US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a former hedge fund manager and global macro investor who spent decades trading currencies, bonds and commodities before joining the administration.

He previously served as chief investment officer at Soros Fund Management and later founded macro hedge fund Key Square Group.

Energy analysts said the effectiveness of such a move would depend heavily on the specifics.

“The devil is in the details… we will have to see what the US government’s plans are,” said Mr Ben Hoff, head of commodity quant research at Societe Generale, who called the potential step unprecedented.

He added that financial tools can only go so far in influencing energy markets, which are driven primarily by physical supply and demand.

The US Federal Reserve intervened to combat a financial crisis in 2008 by purchasing massive amounts of mortgage-backed securities and Treasury bonds in a policy called quantitative easing. Treasury last October used its Exchange Stabilisation Fund to prop up Argentina’s currency by buying pesos in the open market.

That fund, created during the Great Depression, had total assets of US$220.85 billion (S$282.9 billion) as of Jan 31.

In recent years, it has been used to back Fed lending facilities during crises such as the 2008-09 global financial crisis, Covid-19 pandemic and 2023 US bank stability crisis.

There have been examples of government energy market interventions outside of the United States.

Mexico has for years executed a hedging programme called “Hacienda hedge” – once the world’s largest financial oil deal – to protect the country’s oil revenues from price crashes on the world market.

However, the Latin American country is hedging physical oil inventory rather than using purely financial instruments.

President Donald Trump said on March 5

he was not concerned about rising US gas prices

driven by the Iran conflict, telling Reuters that the military operation was his priority.

“I don’t have any concern about it,” he said when asked about the higher prices at the pump. “They’ll drop very rapidly when this is over, and if they rise, they rise, but this is far more important than having gasoline prices go up a little bit.” REUTERS