Brent oil price rose above $67 per barrel Monday morning as Saudi-led coalition forces resumed airstrikes on Yemen on Sunday.
The price of the global benchmark rose 1.3 percent to reach $67.77 per barrel on Monday at 8:30 am GMT, from $66.91 per barrel Sunday.
A five-day humanitarian cease-fire in Yemen came to an end at 8:00 pm GMT Sunday night.
The coalition planes held overnight airstrikes against the presidential palace in Aden, which is under the control of Houthi militants, eyewitnesses told Anadolu Agency.
Yemen is near the Bab el-Mandab strait connecting the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. It is considered to be the fourth biggest chokepoint in the world with some 4.7 million barrels of oil transit per day on average in 2014, according to the U.S.' Energy Information Administration, EIA.
The latest wave of attacks on the geostrategic Aden have increased worries in the oil market once again, posing a risk against the secure transit of oil from the region to international markets.
This is not the first time oil prices has reacted against the conflicts in Yemen.
The day after the Saudi-led coalition started its military campaign against the Shiite Houthis in Yemen on March 26, oil prices rose nearly 6 percent.
Oil prices jumped more than 4 percent on April 16 to reach $64.82 per barrel when Al-Qaeda militants captured an oil terminal in southern Yemen.
- U.S. oil rig count
The decline in the number of oil drilling rigs in the U.S. has also been creating an upward pressure on prices.
However, the pace of their fall has been slowing down in the last three weeks.
Although decreasing for 23 consecutive weeks, the oil rig count in the U.S. fell by only 8 to reach 660 on May 15 -- the lowest number of oil rigs in the U.S. since 2010, but the smallest weekly decline since Dec. 2014.
The number of oil rigs fell by 11 for the week ending May 1 and by 24 the week before, according to data of the oilfield services company Baker Hughes.
By Ovunc Kutlu
Anadolu Agency
ovunc.kutlu@aa.com.tr