Oil prices are rising, but time and circumstances will decide by how much, energy analysts are saying.
Today's conflict between Iran and the United States & Israel is not bringing on crises of the magnitude as those in 1973, 1979 or the 1980s, which caused severe oil shocks, sending crude oil prices upward as much as 600%.
Such extreme moves seldom happen overnight, although oil prices did spike moderately on Monday.
It will depend how long the fighting lasts, whether is spreads into a wider war and whether key elements such as the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz or other vital shipping routes are brought into play, Texas-based Holt & Associates' David Holt III says.
So far the threats to oil and natural gas markets have been minimal, he says, but when you add in bombings and missiles flying for days and then weeks, you can look for ever-increasing oil prices, and that has a ripple effect on the economy that could lead to higher inflation.
The problem is conflicts introduce increasing uncertainty into financial markets.
"You're getting more uncertainty in the markets, and markets always like certainty, and global conflict is certainly the definition of uncertainty," Mr. Holt says.
One of the worst things that could happen is the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, through which passes about 20-percent of the world's oil -- but the stakes are even higher than that, because the strait, when it's open, allows transportation of an even greater share of refined or readily marketable petroleum.
"If there are blockages in the Strait of Hormuz, or things like that, that could certainly impact our ability to get our oil to global oil markets."