Energy crisis investor playbook returns with new Middle East war

War is bad for global warming. Civil unrest ain’t so great, either.

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As a new war erupted in the Middle East over the weekend and oil prices shot higher, investors turned to their Ukrainian playbooks from three years ago for clues how markets will react.

Oil prices surged more than 7% higher last week after Israel first bombed Iran, but renewable energy stocks also leaped, just as they did when Russia invaded Ukraine.

While, so far, Israel has refrained from bombing Iranian oil fields (though it has bombed gas fields), and oil pared gains Monday, the prospect of a crunch on global supplies has been enough to ignite concerns of a new energy crisis like Europe saw three years ago. Bloomberg analysts issued a worst case scenario of oil rising to $130 a barrel if Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation.