U.S. commercial crude oil inventories rose by 1.4 million barrels on Friday, in comparison to the week before, the U.S. Energy Information Administration announced Wednesday.  

Experts across the media expressed surprise at this turnaround, noting that just days ago, the American Petroleum Institute had cited a 5.2-million-barrel decline in U.S. oil stockpiles last week.  

While analysts in part attributed the rally in crude to the delay in any further escalation in conflict, they also braced for unclear circumstances ahead.  

Oslo-based research firm Rystad Energy stressed in a client note that geopolitical tensions remain high due to “Iran’s vow to retaliate against Israel for the assassination of a Hamas leader in Tehran late last month.” 

“The situation remains tense and highly uncertain,” per the note, cited by the London-based group Quantum Commodity Intelligence.   

“This week and next will be crucial in determining whether further escalation can be avoided and whether the geopolitical risk premium will significantly affect oil prices,” the analysts added.  

Benjamin Hoff, global head of commodities strategy at Societe Generale, warned on Monday that tensions in the Middle East could yield a $10 surge in oil prices. 

“We’re dealing with a highly explosive situation, largely because Iran has been waging this war through proxy forces that aren’t always perfectly controllable,” Hoff told CNBC’s Squawk Box.  

A hypothetical disruption of vessels in the Straits of Hormuz could wreak havoc, as this passage conveys about 30 percent of seaborne crude supplies, he noted.  

“Those are significant numbers,” Hoff said. 

Welcome to The Hill’s Sustainability newsletter, I’m Sharon Udasin — every week we follow the latest moves in the growing battle over sustainability in the U.S. and around the world.

Residents of more rural and lower-income areas may be receiving disproportionately slow power restorations following hurricanes, a new study has found.  

Electricity inequities: The research, published in Remote Sensing, showed stark differences in repair times when comparing communities in the aftermath of Florida’s 2018 Hurricane Michael. 

The authors found that block groups with higher proportions of minorities, multi-family housing units, rural areas and households receiving assistance were the most affected.   

All lit up: To draw their conclusions, the authors combined remote sensing data, official outage records and census figures.  

• They then overlayed information from NASA’s nighttime light database with emergency response imagery from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
  
• The researchers found significant fluctuations in power restoration, which tended to be much faster in urban areas surrounding Tallahassee than in the more rural Mexico Beach.  

No time to wait: “Delayed recovery in key infrastructure, such as the power grid, will further devastate these communities,” senior author Diana Mitsova, chair of Florida Atlantic University’s Department of Urban and Regional Planning, said in a statement. 

“Operation of air conditioning units, food storage, entertainment, working, schooling and even drinking water for households with wells, all rely on electricity,” Mitsova added.  

Disaster in delay: The authors emphasized the importance of both reexamining building codes and creating new mutual aid agreements among rural electricity cooperatives.  

They also stressed a need for more focused research on the disparate effects of disaster — with a particular look at the impacts on smaller, rural regions.  

“These communities tend to be vulnerable to natural disasters and often suffer more severe damage compared to other areas,” Mitsova said.