As the war in Iran approaches its third week, the economic crisis it touched off is worsening. Iran has largely blocked shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, the key waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman through which 20 percent of the global oil supply passes. It is also attacking ships that attempt to make the journey and targeting oil facilities around the gulf. The resulting chaos has sent oil prices through the roof and rippled out to consumers across the world, including Americans who have noticed that filling up their cars suddenly costs quite a bit more.

Iran’s new supreme leader has vowed to keep choking off the strait, and despite President Trump’s occasional declarations of near victory, there is no firm end in sight to the war he began. So how much worse will one of the biggest oil shocks in history get if this keeps dragging on? On Wednesday, I spoke with Patrick De Haan, a petroleum analyst with GasBuddy, about the risk of a prolonged conflict in Iran keeping the Strait of Hormuz inaccessible and whether Americans could be paying $4 a gallon for gas in the coming weeks.

We’ve seen gas prices rise significantly across the country with some states seeing jumps of 40 to 50 cents a gallon in the course of a week. How likely are things to get worse before they get better?We can tie that answer directly to what happens in the Strait of Hormuz. If things start to improve there, they will get better. But that doesn’t look like it’s happening yet. Oil prices jumped another 5 percent on Wednesday. Even on a day the International Energy Agency announced it was going to release oil in an accounting move of shifting it from commercial inventories to calling it emergency reserves, the market shrugs off what they’re trying to do here. So how much higher could we go? Qatar’s energy minister suggested $150 a barrel. Iran has said $200 a barrel. The truth is nobody can give you an articulate, accurate answer. As long as the strait is blocked, the world is consuming........

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