Brent crude tops $100 as oil prices surge

· The Fresno Bee

It’s getting ugly in the global oil markets, and increasingly ugly when you pull into a gas station.

Brent crude, the global benchmark, topped $100 per 42-gallon barrel on Sept. 9 for the first time since July, and retail gasoline prices were rising quickly: about 4% just since August 31.

The rapid rise in crude prices, all due to continued violence in the Middle East, also pushed stock prices down for a second day this week and may affect what President Donald Trump says at his mini-campaign event at Dallas on Sept. 9 and 10.

Brent’s rise to $101

Brent settled at $101.21 in London trading, up 3.4% on the day and up 66% on the year, according to Wall Street Journal data. Not only did Brent top $100, but the price was the highest settlement for the contract since May 19 when it finished at $104.15.

Light sweet crude, the U.S. benchmark, was up 3.6% to $96.40 a barrel, its highest close since May 22 it settled at $96.60.

And the damage at the gas pump? GasBuddy.com put its U.S. national average at $4.24 a gallon, up nearly 1% on the day and 3.8% just since Sept. 6, during the Labor Day weekend.

If there’s something to be cheerful about, it’s this. The national price is still down 7.1% from GasBuddy’s peak price of $4.566 a gallon reached on May 6 and May 20.

AAA Fuel Prices put its national average at $4.2245 a gallon, up 1.8% from Sept. 8 and up 3.5% in September. But, to put a pleasant light on the situation, the price is still 7.4% below its May peak and 15.8% below AAA’s June 2022 all-time high of $5.0165 a gallon.

That said, one other price needs to be noted: Diesel fuel nationally reached an all-time high of $5.924 a gallon on Sept. 9, up 66.6% for the year, according to AAA data.

That’s horrible for truckers moving goods across the country and farmers now in the midst of fall harvests.

Why oil prices are rising

The surge in energy prices is directly related to increasing military action in the Persian Gulf including:

  • On Tuesday (Sept. 8), the United States launched attacks on Kharg Island, the key Iranian oil port and destroyed five Iranian crude oil tankers.
  • On Wednesday (Sept. 7), Iran launched missiles at American forces based in Jordan.
  • Houthi rebels based in Yemen shelled multiple energy facilities inside Saudi Arabia.
  • Crude oil shipments from the Strait of Hormuz, through which some 20% of crude passed before this year’s U.S. -Israel-Iran war, are running at extremely low levels.

A fifth factor pushing oil higher: Chinese refiners have been actively buying oil wherever they can, energy trader John Kilduff told TheStreet. The big reason is that Chinese demand is huge, and the profit margins for refiners everywhere are huge.

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Oil turmoil pushes stocks lower again

Energy stocks basically higher. The S&P 500’s sector rose 1%, alone among the 11 sectors in the index.

All of this turmoil pushed stocks lower on Sept. 9, even Apple (AAPL), which introduced a new line of iPhones. But the shares slipped to $315.34.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 405 points, or 0.8%, to 52,381. The Standard &Poor’s 500 Index slipped 0.5% to 7,636, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.6% to 25,253.

There are some takeaways from the Sept. 9 oil turmoil.

“It’s a good reminder that the Hormuz Superstorm was never a single-front weather system. This thing has bands,” wrote Mark Malek, chief investment officer at Siebert Financial in New York.

Stocks are relatively near their highs. The S&P 500 may have suffered a third straight loss, but it is down just 2.3% from its all-time high of 7,718, reached on Aug. 13.

At the same time, Kilduff said, there will be a ceasefire of some sort someday. When that days, global oil markets will be flooded with crude, with gasoline, with diesel fuel.

Still, Siebert’s Malek added in his statement, “Moving from commercial vessels to American warships materially increases the risk of miscalculation and a broader military response.”

Related: $90 oil makes a sudden, unwelcome comeback

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This story was originally published September 9, 2026 at 2:37 PM.