Oil prices continued their gains during Thursday's trading, after rising about 4 percent in the previous session, with the absence of tangible indicators of progress in diplomatic talks between the United States and Iran to end the war, amid continuing concerns about supply disruptions across the Middle East and the Strait of Hormuz.
Brent crude jumped 3.3 percent to $106.50 a barrel during trading, recording its highest level in the session, while West Texas Intermediate crude strengthened its gains, rising 2.7 percent to $94.63 a barrel. Brent had risen 0.4 percent to $103.51 a barrel by 06:30 GMT, before its gains accelerated during the session.
The situation in the physical oil market is still far from completely returning to normal. Priyanka Sachdeva, head of market insights at Philip Nova, said that Brent crude maintains a greater geopolitical premium due to global oil supplies being directly exposed to turmoil in the Middle East and the Strait of Hormuz, while West Texas Intermediate crude benefits from the fact that US supplies are relatively more immune to those turmoil.
An OpenAI AI agent gained unauthorized access to an Australian government system in July, in what the government described as the first known incident in which an AI agent was able to penetrate the country's government IT systems.
On July 18, the agent accessed the Department of Health's Medicare Statistics Reporting Service portal, a publicly available platform that hosts aggregated data on health spending and drug subsidies and is widely used by researchers and academics. The government confirmed that personal information was not among the data accessed.
OpenAI said it reviewed activities involving a number of Australian government departments and discovered that its models “took actions that were not intended.”
The company reported the incident to the Australian government on September 10, according to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who criticized its delay in disclosing the hack.
The portal was closed after the incident, and the data was moved to more secure systems, according to Government Services Secretary Katie Gallagher, who said the government was not confident it knew what the agent was doing until officials held a technical briefing with OpenAI on Tuesday.
Unauthorized access
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said that the agent showed what he described as “incompatible behaviour” after he was denied information, before he was able to gain unauthorized access to the system.
He explained that the information the agent had access to was not “particularly sensitive,” and that it later became available to the public.
Marles likened the system to a fence protecting information, saying that the agent was able to “climb the fence,” stressing that the source of concern is that this happened without being asked to do so.
Albanese said that an investigation into the incident will examine whether there is a possibility of bringing criminal charges against OpenAI, and will also examine why Australian security services were unable to discover the hack before the company reported it to the government.
Questions about agent safety
The incident comes at a time when artificial intelligence companies are expanding the development of agents capable of carrying out tasks more independently, including interacting with digital systems and data sources.
Last week, OpenAI announced a new framework for tracking, investigating and disclosing cases of “noncompliance,” including cases in which artificial intelligence models behave in an unauthorized manner or attempt to evade oversight.
The Australian hack raised questions about the limits that should be set for the powers of these agents, and the mechanisms for detecting any activity that exceeds the permitted tasks, especially when they are connected to government systems or protected databases.
Euro zone bond selling slowed on Thursday, but yields remained near or at multi-year highs, with upbeat activity data and rising oil prices strengthening the case for further monetary tightening by the European Central Bank.
The yield on 10-year German government bonds, the euro zone's benchmark, settled on Thursday at 3.547 percent, just below its 17-year high of 3.5723 percent, which it reached last week. Bond yields move inversely with their prices.
Bond selling was most evident in the most indebted eurozone countries, such as France and Italy. As returns rose at a greater pace, according to Reuters.
French yields reach their highest level in more than 18 years
France has been in the spotlight as it approaches an election year in 2027, with a large primary deficit and budget risks resulting from a divided parliament.
There was little change in the yield on French 10-year bonds on Thursday, settling at 4.655 percent, after earlier touching its highest level in more than 18 years.
The spread between French and German 10-year bond yields widened to more than 110 basis points, the widest level since mid-2012. This widening spread is generally seen as an indicator that investors perceive greater risks in holding French government debt than German debt.
Bond selling accelerated on Wednesday after the release of optimistic data on business activity in the euro zone and the United States.
The yield on 10-year US Treasury bonds rose by up to 16 basis points, hitting its highest level since July 2007, in its largest daily increase since the so-called market turmoil on “Liberation Day” in 2025.
Marcus Weeden, an economist at SEB, said: “The combination of the continued strength of the economy and high energy prices raises expectations of a further increase in interest rates.”
Money market futures were pricing in 35 basis points of monetary tightening by the European Central Bank by the end of the year, implying a quarter-point increase, and a near-40 percent probability of a second increase.
The yield on two-year German bonds, which are most sensitive to changes in the European Central Bank's monetary policy expectations, settled on Thursday at 3.288 percent.
