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Hey there, it's the NPR app today. Okay, and here's the show. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover the White House. And a very happy Friday to us all, including NPR's Camilla Domenoski,

who covers the auto industry. Hi, Camila. Thanks for joining us. Hello. We want to start our weekly roundup this week with a look at what the war in Iran is doing with the energy markets and how that might run counter to what President Trump has said he wants for energy policy.

Camila, let's start with oil. A lot of it comes through the Strait of Hormuz and ship traffic through there is way down since the war with Iran started. What is that doing to energy prices?

Well, I mean, I think it's no surprise to anybody. It has pushed them up, right? It has also made prices quite volatile. So rent crude, which is the global benchmark for crude oil,

it's right above $100 right now, but it was swinging around. It was $13 higher than that at

the start of this week. So prices are really on a roller coaster. But more than $100 pretty

consistently, since not too long after the war began, which is up quite significantly from pre-war levels.

And I will say, they're still not as high as a lot of people would expect them to be,

given the scale of the unprecedented disruption in markets from that straight closure.

I mean, typically about 20% of global production passes through

the straight. That's about ballpark 20 million barrels of oil every single day. Of that missing

oil, some of it can get to market in a different way. Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates

have redirected about five million

barrels or so through pipelines. Everyone around the world is tapping into stockpiled oil.

We're seeing some oil that was released from sanctions. All those things help bridge the gap,

but we're still looking at, from all the estimates I've seen, more than 10 million barrels per day missing from global oil markets.

And that kind of supply shock just inevitably pushes prices up for all kinds of fuel.

Yeah, let's talk about that because most of us don't deal with crude oil.

What does this mean for gas prices, like what people are paying at the pump?

Like, what are we seeing throughout the country?

Yeah, I mean, obviously, your local gas price varies, but wherever you are, you have seen that number go up in a big way, right, since the start of this conflict.

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