Gas prices beginning to feel pre-summer jitters, rising in US

Crude oil (CL=F, BZ=F) prices are on the swing up in the middle of this week on declines in US inventories and geopolitical tensions in Russia. Furthermore, gas prices (NG=F) are starting to move higher ahead of the American summer travel season.

Yahoo Finance Senior Business Reporter Ines Ferré breaks down the price action for the key energy commodities.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

Editor's note: This article was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Video transcript

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JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, and we've been talking about commodities rallying today. Oil and gas have been a part of that rally. And Yahoo Finance's Ines Ferre has the details for you on the latest price action, as we see those bump ups. Ines, how are you doing?

INES FERRE: Yeah, Julie, oil today up more than 2%, with WTI closing just below the $80 a barrel level today, and brent crude closing below or above $84 a barrel. Part of the reason for this has to do with inventories. Those API numbers that came out, those dropped by 5 million barrels for last week. And that's much more than what analysts had been expecting. Across the board, you saw gasoline inventories also down. Now, this comes ahead of the EIA numbers that are coming out tomorrow.

Also, geopolitical risks have really driven up these prices. You have drone attacks on Russian refineries that have impacted those refineries. Russian diesel exports are impacted by this. And those customers have to buy those supplies elsewhere in the world, which brings me to my next point, is what's happening with gasoline prices. Those have been going higher, and those are expected to go higher in the coming weeks.

Part of this has to do with that summer blend that starts around this time of year. California already started mixing their summer blend of gasoline. That's more expensive. California prices, by the way, are at $4.88. You've got the national average right now that's at $3.40, up about $0.18 from last week. And Gulf Coast refiners, those have started to mix their gasoline blend, their summer blend this week. And that is going to impact prices going forward.

You also have some refineries that have been doing maintenance, so that's been impacting prices. And that BP refinery out in Indiana, that is a large refinery that has been trying to come out of the impacts that it's had because of a power outage as of February 1st. So, it's been a long time coming, weeks of them just struggling to ramp up their production there as well. And that's been impacting prices. And the reason why it's important is because we saw what the gasoline prices did to inflation last month.