Supply, demand and 'geopolitical tensions': How oil prices rise Global oil prices

spiked Monday by a whopping 20% seemingly overnight after an attack on a

major oil facility in Saudi Arabia.Interested in Iran? Add Iran as an interest to
stay up to date on the latest Iran news, video, and analysis from ABC News.

With global consumption at 100 million barrels of oil a day, the sudden rise in oil
prices had a ripple effect on international markets, which took a tumble
Monday. ABC News spoke to an oil industry expert to break down what exactly
causes the prices for this global commodity to rise and fall.

An aerial view taken with a drone shows the BP oil refinery and oil storage tanks
in Whiting, Indiana, August 29, 2019.'Supply and demand and anything on
either side of that' As for what causes oil prices to rise? "It's all kind of a
balancing act," Patrick DeHaan, the head of petroleum analysis at fuel price
website GasBuddy told ABC News.

"Oil prices are very sensitive," DeHaan said, adding that at a basic level, they
are driven by "supply and demand and anything on either side of that."
"Anything that touches on those two things, which is a myriad of issues, this
time around on the supply side, it's Saudi Arabia that's having an impact," he
added.

"In this case it's pretty shocking that Saudi Arabia suffered this missile attack on
its oil infrastructure," DeHaan said. "We are now looking at a sudden
unexpected drop in oil production to the tune of millions of barrels."On the
opposite side of that, DeHaan said a "good example of oil prices plunging was
when Saudi Arabia signaled in 2014 that they were going to raise oil
production." "An increase in production can cause oil prices to plummet just like
an unexpected outage would cause oil prices to soar," he added.

Saturday's attack halted production of 5.7 million barrels of crude a day, more
than half of Saudi Arabia's global daily export.'Geopolitical tensions disrupt the
flow of oil'