The price for a barrel of Texas oil is now more than $100 a barrel, not the most expensive it's ever been but a lot more than the $70 it cost just before the US-Israel Iran operation began.
This could send the price of gasoline up as early as tonight, with reports nationwide that gas stations are raising prices while some are possibly waiting until tomorrow.
International trading markets opened at 4 pm Texas time on Sunday and the price of oil shot up from the $90 it traded for Friday to about $108 a barrel within an hour, hitting $110 later in the evening.,
And in an unusual situation, the price of West Texas oil, known as WTI, was almost as expensive as the international benchmark oil price known as Brent Crude, which trades out of London.
The people who trade oil on the markets have been spooked by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which as much as 40-percent of the market-ready oil and gas flows, but there are also grave concerns about the trend that began this weekend of both Iran and Israel -- and perhaps the US -- bombing oil and gas processing facilities.
There is also deep concern about the trend this past weekend of both Iran and Israel bombing each other's refinery and other oil and gas facilities, which greatly reduced the accessibility of oil and gasat a time when up to 40% of market-ready oil is no longer flowing through the Strait.
Also, European analysts are saying oil in storage is falling significantly, now down below 30-percent of the recommended levels of supply-in-waiting, worrying some who normally get their oil through the now-effectively-closed Strait of Hormuz.