U.S. natural gas prices hover around 14-year high

Yahoo Finance reporter Ines Ferre looks at how oil markets performed on Wednesday as U.S. oil exports hit a record amid Europe's energy crisis.

Video transcript

- Let's get up to speed on oil prices with Ines Ferre. Ines?

INES FERRE: Yeah, Seana, and the first gain for WTI futures in four sessions today, with WTI settling at $88.11 a barrel, Brent crude settling at $93.65 a barrel. And WTI futures really rallied today after that inventory data came out, showing that inventories last week were down. Also, US exports hitting a record, as Europe tries to replace Russian oil. So that helped oil rally, as well.

Some other interesting data that came out today also, gasoline demand surged last week, so we saw gasoline futures surging today. Also want to mention US natural gas prices, which had been rallying today. A pause on that rally-- of this rally came because of reserve concerns, and also because of Europe's energy crisis. Europe actually is paying three times more for US natural gas than we are here in the US, but nonetheless, natural gas here is more than double than what it was last year. So consumers can expect to pay more for their heat this winter.

Taking a look at where we're at with energy stocks, you mentioned XLE today in the green. It had been up 1.8% earlier this morning. Energy stocks, even though we saw weakness with them in June and in early July, they have been rallying over the last month. XLE is up 39% year to date, guys.