Oil prices surged more than five percent Thursday after US President Donald Trump targeted Russia’s key oil industry with new sanctions in a bid to end the war in Ukraine.

The international benchmark contract, Brent North Sea crude, jumped 5.4 percent while West Texas Intermediate was up 5.6 percent.

Trump on Wednesday announced new sanctions against Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, saying his peace talks with President Vladimir Putin were not going “anywhere”.

The move was joined by another round of punishments by the European Union as part of attempts to pressure Moscow to end its three-and-a-half-year invasion of Ukraine.

“These new sanctions are likely to have a real impact,” said Arne Lohmann Rasmussen, an analyst at Global Risk Management.

Russia’s foreign

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