Brent crude hit about $117 a barrel on fears of a wider conflict around Iran, and this Simply Wall St piece on Yahoo Finance looks at three oil and gas stocks exposed to the price shock. It weighs which producers could gain pricing power and which face higher costs.
Summary written by Readthrough from the original article. The full story, with photos and any updates, is at Yahoo Finance (XLE, crude).
Brent crude ended the week at its highest since April, settling just under $117 after rising more than 6%, while WTI closed above $103. Houthi militants claimed attacks on Saudi Arabia's Red Sea port of Yanbu, an oil field and an airport, adding to supply fears from the U.S.-Iran war.
The Energy Department authorized an emergency exchange of up to 400,000 barrels of Strategic Petroleum Reserve crude to cover a supply disruption at Phillips 66's Lake Charles refinery in Louisiana. The oil will be returned with additional premium barrels, which DOE says will replenish the SPR at no cost to taxpayers.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright designated helium a critical material under the Energy Act of 2020, citing its essential role in semiconductor manufacturing and advanced energy technologies. DOE says the move aims to reduce reliance on foreign supply and strengthen domestic manufacturing.
The Iran war has pushed oil tanker rates to records, with shipping a supertanker of crude from the U.S. Gulf Coast to China costing as much as $80 million earlier this month, ten times the pre-war norm. Rates are still about $60 million, high enough that Asian refiners are ordering little U.S. crude for November.
