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Police in Norway say an explosion at the United States embassy in the capital, Oslo, overnight that caused no injuries and minor material damage may have been an act of terror, but other motives are also being investigated.

“It’s natural to see this in the context of the current security ⁠situation and that this could be an attack deliberately targeting the US embassy,” Frode Larsen, head of the Oslo police investigation unit, told a news conference on Sunday.

“One of our hypotheses is that this is terrorism, but we are also exploring other options,” Larsen later told public broadcaster NRK. “But we are not completely stuck on that. We have to be open to the possibility that there may be other causes behind what has happened.”

People on the scene said the street was blanketed in thick smoke following the blast.

The blast at the embassy compound in western Oslo occurred at 1am local time (00:00 GMT), sending thick smoke into the street by the entrance of the consular section, witnesses said.

No suspects have been identified, but police are searching for one or several perpetrators ‌and are cooperating closely with the embassy, Larsen said.

Norway’s government was in contact with ⁠officials at the embassy to convey that this ⁠was “an unacceptable act that we take very seriously”, Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said in a statement.

“The security of diplomatic missions is very important to us,” he said.

PST, the Norwegian police security service, called in additional personnel following the incident but has not changed the country’s terror threat level, according to communication adviser Martin Bernsen.

“This is an unacceptable incident that is being treated with the utmost seriousness,” said Astri Aas-Hansen, Norway’s minister of justice and public security.

“The police have stated that they are investigating the case with significant resources, and that nothing indicates the situation poses any danger to the public.”

The United States-Israeli war on Iran could leave consumers and businesses worldwide facing weeks or months of higher fuel prices even if the conflict, which is now in its eighth day, ends quickly, as suppliers grapple with damaged facilities, disrupted logistics, and elevated risks to shipping.

The outlook poses a global economic threat and a political vulnerability for US President Donald Trump leading into the midterm elections, with voters sensitive to energy bills and unfavourable to foreign entanglements.

Global oil prices have surged by more than 25 percent since the start of the war, driving up fuel prices for consumers worldwide.

The national average petrol price reached $3.41 per gallon ($0.9 a litre) on Saturday, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA), rising by $0.43 over the past week. Goldman Sachs warned oil prices could climb above $100 per barrel if shipping disruptions continue.

US crude oil settled at just below $91 per barrel on Friday – its largest weekly gain on record in data dating back to 1983, indicating prices could continue to rise.

“The market is shifting from pricing pure geopolitical risk to grappling with tangible operational disruption, as refinery shutdowns and export constraints begin to impair crude processing and regional supply flows,” JP Morgan analysts said earlier this week, according to the Reuters news agency.

The conflict has already led to the suspension of about a fifth of global crude and natural gas supply, as Tehran targets ships in the vital Strait of Hormuz between its shores and Oman, and attacks energy infrastructure across the region.

A nearly complete shutdown of the strait means the region’s top oil producers – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Kuwait – have had to suspend shipments of as much as 140 million barrels of oil – equal to about 1.4 days of global demand – to global refiners.

More than 80 percent of global trade moves by sea, according to the World Bank, meaning disruptions in the waterway could increase freight costs and delay deliveries of goods.

Djibouti’s finance minister, Ilyas M. Dawaleh, warned on Saturday that the fighting would “bring severe economic consequences for developing countries”. Small states which depend on maritime trade “risk being pulled into deeper economic uncertainty as external shocks ripple across the region and #Africa”, he wrote on X.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said last week that his country’s economy was in a “state of near-emergency”, warning of growing inflation.

Storages in the Gulf filling

As a result of these developments, oil and gas storage at facilities in the Gulf is rapidly filling, forcing oilfields in Iraq and Kuwait to cut oil production, with the UAE likely to cut next, analysts, traders and sources told Reuters.

“At some point soon, everyone will also shut in if vessels do not come,” a ⁠source with a state oil company in the region, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

Oilfields forced to shut in across the Middle East as a result of the shipping disruptions could take a while to return to normal, said Amir Zaman, head of the Americas commercial team at Rystad Energy.

“The conflict could be ended, but it could take days or weeks or months, depending on the types of fields, age of the field, the type of shut-in that they’ve had to do before you can get production back up to what it once was,” he said.

Iranian forces, meanwhile, are targeting regional energy infrastructure, including refineries and terminals, forcing them to shut down, too, with some of those operations badly damaged by attacks and in need of repairs.

Qatar declared force majeure on its huge volumes of gas exports on Wednesday after Iranian drone attacks, and it may take at least a month to return to normal production ‌levels, sources told Reuters. Qatar supplies 20 percent of global liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Saudi Aramco’s mammoth Ras Tanura refinery and crude export terminal, meanwhile, has also closed due to attacks, with no details on damage.

Economists warn that the situation could create a combination of higher prices and slower growth.