$200 oil isn’t as crazy as it sounds | CNN Business

In the summer of 2008, weeks before the investment bank Lehman Brothers imploded, oil prices skyrocketed to nearly $150 a barrel. Some oil watchers are warning of even higher prices this summer if the vital Strait of Hormuz doesn’t reopen soon. US oil prices have already spiked from about $65 to around $100 since the start of the war in the Middle East. Crude spiked by 51% in March alone, the second-biggest one-month increase since futures trading launched in 1983. Meanwhile, gasoline prices have surged above $4 a gallon nationally and will likely increase the cost of everything from groceries to air travel. President Donald Trump on Tuesday insisted that the conflict will end in the coming weeks and that gas prices will “come tumbling down” once that happens. But if the war doesn’t end soon, some oil analysts caution that a prolonged conflict and a failure to reopen the Strait of Hormuz will be very costly. If the war lasts through June, oil prices would likely spike above $200 a barrel “for a time,” according to research published recently by Australian investment bank Macquarie Group. Vikas Dwivedi, global oil and gas strategist at Macquarie, told CNN on Wednesday th