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(Bloomberg) -- Benchmark oil prices are soaring as war in the Middle East disrupts crude flows, but the advance is also sparking the biggest discount for US crude in more than a decade as the rally spreads unevenly across the globe.

West Texas Intermediate traded at a discount of more than $20 a barrel to the global Brent benchmark at one point on Thursday, the most since 2013. The nearest US futures contract is close to $97 a barrel, while some grades in the Middle East, like Oman crude, have topped $150 as the hostilities escalated.

That’s partly a reflection of diverging supply outlooks between regions as the conflict rages on.

Oil and gas infrastructure sites in Iran and other nations around the Persian Gulf were targeted overnight, sending non-US benchmarks soaring. The types of barrels the US produces haven’t been hit as hard, and the announcement last week of a giant release of emergency reserves is bolstering supplies for Gulf Coast refiners.

Asian buyers are heavily reliant on Middle Eastern barrels — Japan gets about 90% of its crude from Persian Gulf nations — which have been severely disrupted by the de facto halt to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The region’s processors have been scouring the globe for supplies and paying up to secure them, adding to the premiums for other benchmarks.

“This is partly due to the US being the world’s largest oil producer and the US market being well supplied with light WTI crude,” said Arne Lohmann Rasmussen, chief analyst at A/S Global Risk Management. “There is a shortage of medium-to heavy-crude from the Middle East.”

The huge discount has drawn the attention of Washington. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent touted the large US discounts when talking to Fox Business on Thursday, claiming they were a function of US energy independence. The country is a net exporter of refined fuels, but remains a net importer of crude.

Bessent also reiterated that the US isn’t intervening in oil derivatives markets. The deep discounts have sparked intense speculation among traders that the US would take such steps.

On other fronts, the Trump administration may decide to consider a crude-oil export levy, or possibly a ban, to combat surging energy prices caused by the war in the Middle East, according to RBC Capital Markets LLC. Speculation of US protectionist policies have exacerbated WTI’s discount, traders said.