brent crude

Thursday was a rocky one for the oil market. Brent crude was up more than 3% at one point, and U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate briefly crested the $100-a-barrel mark.

That’s a big gap between the financial world’s price of oil versus what people are actually paying to get a physical delivery of a barrel of oil.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration raised its Brent crude forecast to average around $90 a barrel for the second half of the year, about 5% higher than its last estimate.

Analysts don’t see an end to war in the Middle East on the horizon.

Oil prices that top the $100-per-barrel mark have downstream effects on all kinds of things. Bonds are among them.

After the Strait of Hormuz closed, China slashed its oil imports, seemingly without reducing energy demand or tapping into reserves. How China is doing it — and why — remains a mystery.

Two months into the disruption of oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, a gap is opening between what financial markets expect oil to cost and what buyers are actually paying to get a physical barrel delivered today.

Brent Crude? West Texas Intermediate? What’s the difference?

Oil prices go up faster than they come down, especially since the war has damaged oil infrastructure in the Middle East.

At some point, the rising price of energy could start forcing people and businesses to make hard choices.