On Tuesday morning, a barrel of crude was trading below $80, a red line that has not been breached for months since February last year, raising fears that the oil wrapped in explosives was running out of value.
Contrary to expectations, an attack on a sports field in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights killed 12 people and threatened to spark open war between Israel and Hezbollah, but it did not reverse the pace of oil's decline in the market.
So what caused this unexpected reaction? Nicolas Maduro's dubious victory in Venezuela (at least in the West) does not have that power, even though the country has the largest oil reserves in the world, at 300 billion barrels, because from a pragmatic perspective, it is the most certain outcome for Venezuela.
Market analysts continue to watch the situation in the Middle East because it makes sense to do so, especially after the Israeli government announced it would take a devastating response to an attack by Hezbollah. But the fact that the Shiite movement, which has close ties to Iran, denied responsibility for firing the rocket that killed 12 Druze children and young people in the Golan Heights could cast doubt on the reasons behind fears of escalating tensions.