By Barani Krishnan

Investing.com: The unhinged rally for oil had all the right ingredients, including geopolitics and supply politics. The only thing missing was a real weather crisis — made up this week by the Texas freeze that tipped the market firmly above $90 on fears the Permian shale basin could get frozen again like last year.

U.S. crude and its U.K. peer Brent rallied for a seventh straight week, racing toward Wall Street banks’ call for $100 a barrel. To be sure, that target was made well before the Russia-Ukraine crisis, half-hearted production hikes by OPEC+ and, now, the arctic blast gripping much of America, including Texas — the fourth hottest U.S. state outside of winter.

“Crude prices seem to have a one-way ticket to $100 oil,” Ed Moya, analyst at online trading platform OANDA, wrote in his weekend commentary.  

“This week’s rally in crude oil was supported by the OPEC+ decision to stick to their gradual increase strategy and as U.S. production fell again.  The latest price spike is due to an arctic blast in Texas, which is disrupting some Texas production. Everything seems to be turning very bullish for WTI crude and the bullish momentum might not see much resistance until the $95 level.”

New York’s West Texas Intermediate or New York-traded crude oil settled higher at $92.31 per barrel, 2.3% more than the session high of $93.17. The U.S. crude benchmark rose nearly 7 percent week-to-date while the cumulative gain over the past seven weeks was 30 percent. WTI is up 23% in the last year. 

After a record $83.69 peak eight years ago, London-traded Brent settled at $93.27. This was 2.4% higher than its global benchmark oil price. Brent rose about 4% week-to-date while the cumulative gain over seven weeks was 27%. Brent gained 20% in the past year. 

As oil prices rallied, the attention shifted this week to Texas. Temperatures were expected to fall below 20 F (-7 Celsius), in Texas in many places in the coming days.

West of Texas is home to the Permian oil and gas basin which spills over into New Mexico’s southeast.

“The relative strength of the cold in mid-Texas cannot be understated – consecutive days of freezing temperatures within this week have the potential to lead to additional freeze offs in the Permian,” said Dan Myers, analyst at Houston-based energy consultancy Gelber & Associates.

Bloomberg reports that Midland, which is the heart of Permian Basin’s oil-and-gas-rich Permian Basin could see its temperature drop to 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the weekend.

The stakes of another super freeze are high in Texas, where last year’s winter storm led to blackouts and deaths of more than 200 people. 

As Bloomberg noted, this year’s storm will test whether Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Republican lawmakers have done enough to bolster the power network, including new rules requiring the grid operator to increase reserve capacity and make it easier for industrial users to get paid to reduce consumption. 

Texas officials have said that they’re confident that the Lone Star State’s power grid can avoid a repeat of last year’s catastrophic blackouts as a major storm sweeps through the region, although the icy blast could still bring local outages.