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U.S. crude oil prices rose nearly 2% on Thursday for a third consecutive session of gains, as the market braces for Israel to retaliate against Iran.

The risk of oil supply disruptions increases as fighting in the Middle East intensifies, but OPEC+ is sitting on a large amount of spare crude that could step into the breach, according to Claudio Galimberti, chief economist at Rystad Energy.

U.S. crude oil has gained 5% this week.

Here are Thursday’s energy prices:

• West Texas Intermediate November contract: $71.53 per barrel, up $1.46, or 2.08%. Year to date, U.S. crude oil is nearly flat.
• Brent December contract: $75.29 per barrel, up $1.39, or 1.88%. Year to date, the global benchmark has fallen more than 2%.
• RBOB Gasoline November contract:  $2.0242 per gallon, up 1.93%. Year to date, gasoline has pulled back nearly 4%.
• Natural Gas November contract: $2.0243 per thousand cubic feet, up 1.98%. Year to date, gas has gained more than 16%.

“This spare capacity is for now preventing runaway prices amid one of the deepest and most pervasive crises in the Middle East in the past four decades,” Galimberti told clients in a Thursday note.

OPEC+ spare capacity would be sufficient to cover a disruption to Iran’s exports if Israel strikes the Islamic Republic’s oil infrastructure as retaliation for Tehran’s ballistic missile attack, said Bjarne Schieldrop, chief commodities analyst at the Swedish bank SEB.

But traders would begin to worry about supply disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, Schieldrop said. “That would add a significant risk premium to oil,” he told CNBC’s “Street Signs Europe.”

As a consequence, oil prices could surge to $200 per barrel if Israel hits Iran’s oil infrastructure, he said.

This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

Geopolitical uncertainty  
Major U.S. indexes all closed slightly above the flatline on Wednesday. Oil prices continued rising, helping energy stocks outperform. Nike fell 6.8% and Tesla lost 3.5%. Asia-Pacific stocks traded mixed Thursday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose about 2% as the yen slipped, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped around 1.4% after enjoying a strong rally on Wednesday.

Yen slides on Ishiba’s dovish comments 
The Japanese yen fell to as low as 147.15 against the U.S. dollar during Asia trading hours today on dovish comments from new Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba. “I do not believe that we are in an environment that would require us to raise interest rates further,” Ishiba said Wednesday. Analysts, however, think the Bank of Japan will still raise rates by early 2025. 

OpenAI’s $157 billion valuation 
OpenAI has raised $6.6 billion in its latest funding round, putting it at a valuation of $157 billion. The round was led by Thrive Capital – which planned to invest $1 billion – and included participation from Microsoft, Nvidia and Softbank, said a person with knowledge of the matter.  

Behind India’s booming market 
India Nifty 50 index is up 18.7% year to date, hitting record highs on its way there. Several factors are driving its rally: public infrastructure investments by the government, companies diversifying their supply chains away from China to India, healthy economic growth, a growing population and lower U.S. Federal Reserve interest rates.  

[PRO] Opportunities amid disruptions 
Strikes by longshoremen at U.S. coastal ports are only the latest in a series of supply chain disruptions we’ve experienced in recent years. While those interruptions are generally bad for the global economy by increasing shipment prices and delivery times, Goldman Sachs thinks some stocks can benefit from such events.

You’d expect that markets would have been shaken by that threat to the global economy. But all major U.S. indexes managed to close just a tad above the flatline. The S&P 500 was mostly unchanged, the Dow Jones Industrial Average eked out a 0.09% gain and the Nasdaq Composite ticked up 0.08%. 

Headwinds blowing from Middle East might have been tempered by optimism in China.  

Lifted by Beijing’s recent announcement of economic stimulus, Chinese stocks have been on a tear. That’s caused U.S. exchange-traded funds that track Chinese stocks to rally, helping to keep the U.S. market afloat amid worries over the escalating Middle East conflict. 

Indeed, U.S. stocks tend to benefit whenever the Chinese government unleashes economic stimulus and credit expansion, according to Ryan Grabinski, strategist at Strategas Securities. 

Here’s the flipside of globalization: Negative developments in one part of the world may weigh down others, but positive ones will radiate optimism beyond their origin. 

– CNBC’s Hakyung Kim, Yun Li, Alex Harring and Samantha Subin contributed to this story.   

This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

Geopolitical uncertainty  
Major U.S. indexes all closed slightly above the flatline on Wednesday. Oil prices continued rising, helping energy stocks outperform. Nike fell 6.8% and Tesla lost 3.5%. Europe’s regional Stoxx 600 inched up 0.05%. Defense stocks like Saab and Thales rose in response to the escalating conflict in the Middle East.  

OpenAI’s $157 billion valuation 
OpenAI has raised $6.6 billion in its latest funding round, putting it at a valuation of $157 billion. The round was led by Thrive Capital – which planned to invest $1 billion – and included participation from Microsoft, Nvidia and Softbank, said a person with knowledge of the matter.  

Tesla’s deliveries missed expectations 
Tesla stocks fell 3.5% after it reported deliveries that missed expectations. In the third quarter of 2024, Tesla delivered 462,890 vehicles, slightly below the 463,310 estimate compiled by FactSet StreetAccount. Tesla doesn’t report sales numbers for specific models or regions, so deliveries are the closest approximation to them. 

More-than-expected private jobs added 
The U.S. private sector added 143,000 jobs in September, according to a report by payrolls processing firm ADP. That’s more than the 128,000 predicted by economists polled by Dow Jones and higher than August’s upwardly revised figure of 103,000. It’s a sign that the labor market isn’t as flabby as some had feared. 

[PRO] October’s volatility has begun 
The S&P 500 moves an average of more than 1% in either direction each day in October, according to CNBC Pro analysis, based on FactSet data going back to 1950. And October is already living up to that reputation, writes CNBC Pro’s Fred Imbert. Here’s how one Wall Street analyst is preparing for the historically choppy month.

You’d expect that markets would have been shaken by that threat to the global economy. But all major U.S. indexes managed to close just a tad above the flatline. The S&P 500 was mostly unchanged, the Dow Jones Industrial Average eked out a 0.09% gain and the Nasdaq Composite ticked up 0.08%. 

Headwinds blowing from Middle East might have been tempered by optimism in China.  

Lifted by Beijing’s recent announcement of economic stimulus, Chinese stocks have been on a tear. That’s caused U.S. exchange-traded funds that track Chinese stocks to rally, helping to keep the U.S. market afloat amid worries over the escalating Middle East conflict. 

Indeed, U.S. stocks tend to benefit whenever the Chinese government unleashes economic stimulus and credit expansion, according to Ryan Grabinski, strategist at Strategas Securities. 

Here’s the flipside of globalization: Negative developments in one part of the world may weigh down others, but positive ones will radiate optimism beyond their origin. 

– CNBC’s Hakyung Kim, Yun Li, Alex Harring and Samantha Subin contributed to this story.   

The oil market faced a rude awakening this week after Iran launched a large-scale ballistic missile attack against Israel, briefly sending crude prices more than 5% higher Tuesday after a period of sleepy trading.

For months now, traders have largely dismissed the risk of a supply disruption in the Middle East. Instead, bearish sentiment swept the market in September as investors increasingly fear a surplus next year due to softening demand in China and increased production from OPEC+.

The expanding war in the Middle East, however, has reached a new boiling point as Israel has vowed a “painful” response to Iran’s attack. The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could take aim at the Islamic Republic’s oil infrastructure in retaliation, geopolitical and crude market analysts say.

“There has been a lot of complacency about this war,” Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, said on CNBC’s “The Exchange” Tuesday shortly after the attack. “We do need to think about a scenario where Iranian oil supplies are at risk.”

Israel could also take aim at Iran’s nuclear facilities, but those buildings are hardened, making them difficult to destroy, said retired U.S. Army Colonel Jack Jacobs. A strike on those facilities could trigger an even larger ballistic missile attack by Iran that would be difficult to defend against, he said.

“What is really on the table now and is more likely is an attack on oil facilities,” Jacobs said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Wednesday morning.

OPEC member Iran is producing at a five-year high of more than 3 million barrels per day, Croft said. U.S. intelligence in the past has highlighted the potential risk to Iran’s Kharg Island oil terminals, through which 90% of the country’s crude exports pass, according to a Tuesday note from RBC Capital Markets.

“The next turn in this retaliation spiral may very well involve oil – via the degrading of Iran’s oil capacity
or Iran’s proxies attacking oil and gas shipping from the Persian Gulf,” Piper Sandler analysts told clients in a Wednesday research note.

The impact on the oil market would depend on the damage done to Iranian crude exports and how the situation escalates from there, said Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy. If Iran’s oil exports of around 1.8 million bpd were taken offline, prices would likely jump by at least $5 per barrel, McNally said.

Iran, in turn, would likely retaliate by threatening the 13 million bpd of crude and 5 million bpd of products that are produced in and flow through the Persian Gulf, McNally said. An escalation on this scale could send oil prices higher in increments of $10 per barrel, the analyst said.

“These are dangerous times for oil markets at the moment,” Andy Critchlow, EMEA head of news at S&P Global Commodity Insights, told CNBC’s “Street Signs” Europe Wednesday. “It’s hard for anyone in the market to really gauge the direction when you look at the amount of geopolitical risk that is out there.”

OPEC, however, has 5.6 million bpd of spare capacity that can be brought back to the market with Saudi Arabia keen to bring as much of its oil back to the market as possible, Critchlow said.

“Any disruption to Iranian supplies to the international market I think could be made up by spare OPEC capacity and it’s idled oil at the moment,” the analyst said.

McNally, however, said this oil won’t mean much if there is a major disruption in the Persian Gulf. “Spare capacity won’t help because it’s mostly bottled up inside the Strait of Hormuz,” the analyst said.