Gas prices are going up. A story from the Wall Street Journal is reporting regular gas in the U.S. went up to an average of $4 a gallon on Sunday. According to AAA, this is the highest price since July 2008.
The shunning of Russian oil has put the squeeze on an already tight market, removing millions of barrels of product from the supply chain while demand is up. Prior to the pandemic, the U.S. produced about 19 million barrels of gasoline a day. But since then, the country’s ability to refine gasoline has dropped considerably, with the market having lost roughly one million barrels of daily gasoline-refining capacity since early 2020.
Analysts believe this will lead to higher prices as growth returns, regardless of the crisis in Ukraine. Claudio Galimberti, senior vice president of analysis at energy consultant Rystad Energy, told the Journal that the U.S. is “in a price crunch of historical proportions,” adding: “If we were in a supply crunch before the Russia invasion, right now we are in a hyper-supply crunch” for oil.
With gas prices rising to nearly record levels in the U.S., investors may want to consider strategies that provide access to direct purveyors of clean technologies and services, which could be a rewarding idea as renewable energy escalates. One exchange traded fund that provides exposure to such companies is the SPDR Kensho Clean Power ETF (CNRG).
CNRG follows the S&P Kensho Clean Power Index, which leverages artificial intelligence and a quantitative weighting scheme to identify opportunities among clean energy companies, including those in the hydroelectric power, solar, and wind industries.
Launched in October 2018, CNRG, which deb is tethered to the theme of elevated renewable energy spending, and that’s not a pipe dream. It’s materializing in real time, with some experts forecasting a major reset in green asset prices in the years ahead.
CNRG has an expense ratio of 0.45%.
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