Oil Prices Rise Amid Conflicting Signals on US-Iran Talks

12:06 PM EDT, 09/28/2026 (MT Newswires) -- Crude prices were rising Monday as markets evaluated conflicting signals on the status of US-Iran talks. West Texas Intermediate crude was last seen up 3.1% at $95.30 a barrel, off the session high of $96.54. Brent was 3% higher at $107.48 after reaching as high as $108.83 earlier in the day. WTI has increased 11% this month, while Brent has jumped 13%. Both recorded gains in August and July. US President Donald Trump told reporters on Saturday that he rejected a proposal made by Iran, according to CNBC. That came after The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Trump had turned down Tehran's offer and informed his administration of plans to resume attacks on the country after the midterm elections in November. In a separate interview with Axios on Sunday, Trump said he expects his negotiating team to engage further with Iran this week. "They want to make a deal, but it is not the deal that I want to make," Trump said, according to Axios. "It is what we would have maybe agreed to a year ago. They overplayed their hand." "The path back to talks remains highly uncertain, with Trump saying Iran had overplayed its hand," Saxo Bank said in a Monday report. Last week, US and Iranian negotiators were reportedly in discussions about a phased path out of their conflict, with Tehran reopening the Strait of Hormuz and Washington lifting its economic blockade of Iran. Trump's rejection could reinforce inflation and higher-for-longer interest rate concerns, Saxo Bank said. Earlier this month, the US Federal Reserve raised its benchmark lending rate for the first time since July 2023 and signaled another hike later this year. Last month, the US Treasury Department launched an economic campaign to cut off financial channels that support Iran. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has resumed exporting oil using its East-West pipeline after repairing damage from drone strikes by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi rebels, Bloomberg News reported Monday, citing a person with direct knowledge of the matter. The Saudi-backed Coalition to Support Legitimacy in Yemen intercepted projected missiles and drones from the Houthis over the weekend, Colonel Turki Al-Maliki, the coalition's official spokesman, said in a series of posts on X.