Energy infrastructure emerges as war target, lifting prices

Energy prices surged Monday as the war in the Middle East led to outages of key energy production operations and a critical waterway was essentially emptied of traffic. European natural gas prices finished the day up more than 39 percent after surging more than 50 percent earlier in the day. Brent oil futures rose to above $82 dollars a barrel, a gain of more than 13 percent early in the session. The benchmark finished up 7.3 percent at $77.74 a barrel, up around $15 compared with the start of 2026. US benchmark West Texas Intermediate ended at $71.23 a barrel,…