Crude oil prices are jumping Wednesday morning following the deadly attack on a Gaza City hospital. Yahoo Finance Markets Reporter Ines Ferre examines the price trends in the energy market as Iran — a major oil producer and member of OPEC+ — calls for a boycott of Israel.
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Video Transcript
AKIKO FUJITA: While oil prices are surging after a deadly blast at a Gaza hospital, further inflamed already fiery tensions in the Middle East, now Iran's foreign minister is calling for sanctions and an oil embargo on Israel. This comes as President Biden visits Israel to reiterate the US support for the country. Joining us now with how this will all affect the markets, let's bring in Yahoo Finance's Ines Ferré tracking it for us today. Ines.
INES FERRÉ: Yeah. And Akiko, that call by Iran's foreign minister to boycott crude for Israel really has sent oil prices higher. Also President Biden's meeting with Arab Nations that was canceled. That did not bode well for oil. Look, Iran's involvement when it comes to the Middle East conflict is really critical when it comes to the oil prices.
Because Iran produces more than 3 million barrels a day of crude oil and exports almost 1 million barrels a day. And last week, we saw a lot of volatility. I'll show you on our Wi-Fi interactive board. A 12-day chart here for Brent Crude for WTI. A lot of this volatility came about because of concerns that the Israel-Hamas war would expand into other countries, namely Iran.
Now, as far as oil's movement today is concerned, as well though, we are seeing oil move higher off of data-- inventory data. Crude oil inventory fell by 4.9 million barrels last week. That's according to the EIA data. There was also data yesterday that reflected a similar move as well. Cushing Oklahoma inventories, those fell by 700,000 barrels, flirting with operational minimum levels.
And what that indicates is that demand is going up. So virtually across the board, you saw inventories go down, except for jet fuel, by the way. Jet fuel inventories climbed as demand is weakening there. Looking at where we're at with energy stocks, because energy stocks have been moving higher. I'm going to show you a three-month chart on our Wi-Fi interactive XLE up 12% over the last three months as energy stocks have risen along with crude oil prices. And a year to date chart shows you XLE up 5%, guys.
