Oil prices are about to cap off a 3rd-straight month of losses, even as Red Sea attacks disrupt supplies

• Oil prices fell 3% on Thursday as fears about attacks in the Red Sea subsided.
• That put oil markets are on track to notch a third straight month of declines.
• Though Houthi attacks in the Red Sea caused detours, shipping lines are returning to the region.

Oil markets are on track to notch a three-month streak of declines, as crude prices are plummeting in the final stretch of this year's trading. 

Brent crude, the international benchmark, and West Texas Intermediate both fell about 3% on Thursday, putting them on course for monthly declines of 2% and 2.8%, respectively. And since late September, they are both down about 17%.

That's as US crude output has been so strong that it helped offset OPEC+ supply cuts led by Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Meanwhile, upticks in oil that came when Houthis, an Iran-backed Yemen rebel group, began launching assaults on cargo ships passing through the Red Sea, have also eased.

Though the Red Sea is the quickest route between Europe and Asia, shipping lines began sending their vessels around Africa when the attacks started.

It also prompted concern that the war in Gaza was shifting into a larger, regional conflict, pushing Brent to just over $81 in mid-December.

However, the US has since organized a multinational naval task force to combat the Houthi threat, while Washington further doubled down with sanctions on groups in Turkey and Yemen accused of helping finance Houthi operations.

Though shipping companies such as Hapag-Lloyd still consider it too dangerous to return to the Red Sea, others are coming back. Maersk, the second-largest line by capacity, is returning almost all its vessels to traverse through the area, Reuters reported.