Kimberly Adams

Take a listen wherever you get your podcasts.

navigating the pipelines of the global oil economy.

Plus, let's squeeze in some winter sports before the season is done.

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace.

From Minnesota Public Radio in St.

Paul, I'm Kimberly Adams in for Kai Risdahl.

It's Thursday, March 12th.

Good to have you along.

We're going to start today's program by looking at oil and the global economy right now.

The president's war in the Middle East is restricting the supply of crude to the rest of the world.

And Iran said today that it will keep the Strait of Hormuz closed, so oil prices jumped.

And Brent crude, which is the specific kind of oil that's no longer flowing out of the Mideast, topped $100 a barrel.

Even with more than 170 million barrels of oil being released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, some of the refineries that convert crude oil into the energy we consume just don't have access to the raw material they need.

And as Marketplace's Justin Ho reports, the war could end up causing many refineries to shut down production.

Wall Street today, once again, the markets are following the constantly shifting dynamic of this war and its impact on oil prices.

We'll have the details when we do the numbers.

So on the show yesterday, we were talking about how the inflation numbers revealed a drop in egg prices, but that those savings have been kind of offset by rising meat prices, especially beef.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average cost of a pound of beef across the U.S.

sits at $6.73.

To give you a comparison, in January of 2021, the average price sat at just under $4.