Oil prices spike after US, UK airstrikes on Houthis in Yemen

Crude oil (CL=F, BZ=F) prices are jumping higher Friday after the US and UK military coordinated airstrikes on Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen on Thursday. These events further complicate escalating conflicts in the Red Sea where Houthi forces are targeting freight shipping vessels.

Yahoo Finance Senior Reporters Ines Ferré and Jared Blikre detail the broader implications on global trade routes and the energy sector, while also commenting on energy M&A activity stemming from Chesapeake Energy Corporation's (CHK) acquisition of Southwestern Energy Company (SWN).

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

BRAD SMITH: Well, oil prices, we mentioned them a moment ago, they're climbing higher this morning, following US-led airstrikes on Yemen's Houthis. We've got team coverage with Yahoo Finance's Ines Ferre and Jared Blikre. INes, we'll begin with you, you're watching Brent this morning.

INNES FERRE: Yeah that's right, and Brent touching $80 a barrel this morning. Brent has had a tough time going above $78 a barrel. But look, it's not uncommon that we would see a spike of 2 or 3% in one day, when we see these Red Sea tensions happening. And we've seen it before, oil has been rangebound recently, but it has been trading some days up 2%, some days down 2%.

Now with these strikes, regarding these strikes, we have seen that these tensions in the Red Sea are rising again. And we are also seeing that there's a major Danish oil tanker company, TORM. They said that they're stopping their routes via the Red Sea. Why is this important, well, this company has about 80 vessels that move refined products from refineries to their customers. so they will be stopping those routes via the Red Sea.

It's important to note that this Red Sea connects to the Suez Canal, it's the shortest distance between Asia and Europe. Maersk last week said that it was going to stop those routes for the foreseeable future. They had temporarily started again, and now they have stopped again. There's another German giant, also shipping giant, that has said that it will not be going through the Red Sea.

Now what this does is, it lengthens their trips, because they will have to go through the Cape of Africa. It can lengthen the trip anywhere from 7 to 14 days. So this is why we're seeing oil prices spike today. Nevertheless, I will mention that we have seen some analysts that have lowered their forecasts for Brent Crude for 2024, and that's because of increasing supply, increasing supply from the US and others, you just had Barclays that lowered their forecast to $85 a barrel for Brent for this year. Guys--

JARED BLIKRE: Yeah, thank you for that Innes, I'll take it from here. I just want to talk about the oil patch in the United States. And M&A has been the name of the game, we saw a disastrous year last year, not quite a disaster, but it was not a good year for energy. But we did see some deals announced later in the year, we got Exxon potentially hooking up with Pioneer, we got Chevron and Hess, Occidental and another private company, and we also have Chesapeake and Southwestern.

Now interesting combination. And I have some commentary from the street, this really strengthens the play in the natural gas sphere. And let me just read some of this analyst commentary here. Here's Mizuho, they are upgrading the stock Chesapeake, to a buy from neutral price target 104 from 96.

This creates a US shale gas powerhouse, with operational and marketing flexibility. Sees cost savings of at least $400 million annually by 2025. And then here's BMO outperform with a price target of 85. The combination creates a must-own dry gas producer, when the market calls for growth to meet LNG. Calls asset overlap significant and creates the leading dry gas footprint in two basins.

So let me just go back to the charts here, I talked about the difficult year that we saw. And let me just show you on a one-year trailing basis, all the red you're seeing on the screen, it's not a lot. But look, Chevron down 16%, as it turns out Southwest is actually up a little bit, 15% over that time period.

But here's the two-year look, and this changes dramatically. We saw oil really outperform, it was the best performing sector by far in 2022. And Exxon up 40% from that time period, Chevron 16%, Occidental Petroleum, 67, and Hess 55%. So the name of the game is M&A for this year, I think, in the oil patch. I wouldn't be surprised to see a few more of these deals come about.