Thanks to our Brown Bag Analyst here at PlaneBusiness, who was paying more attention to news today than I was, being tied to the keyboard as I have been for much of the day.

Apparently Occidental Petroleum Corp. said today it would be unable to meet commitments to its customers after a fire led to the shutdown of most production from its Elk Hills field in California. Elk Hills is California’s largest gas field. 60% of the field’s output is crude oil.

Bloomberg reports that there is no timeframe for resuming production at the field, which normally has an output of 120,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day, said Occidental spokeswoman Susie Geiger. About 95% of output is shut down. Occidental spokeswoman Jan Sieving confirmed in an interview that the company declared force majeure.

Yep. I’d say that was the biggest reason for the jump.