That's the real cost of a barrel of oil because buying the physical commodity is a very different story from a number on traders' screens.
Oil futures are just that: paper contracts indicating a price today, tomorrow, next month or further out. If you want to buy the physical commodity, it may be a totally different story — and price.
As I've reported, prices for oil delivery have skyrocketed. Last week, a VLCC (aka a "supertanker" in non-shipper parlance) was chartered from the U.S. Gulf Coast to China for $76 million. Another very large crude carrier went for $77 million from the U.S. to South Korea. That's 10 times more than the price of the same trip less than one year ago.
Assuming these ships hold about 2 million barrels of oil, that charter price means each barrel on the ship costs about $38 over the price of the oil itself.
I'm certainly not saying to avoid looking at oil futures prices, but you need to know that the price on the CNBC screen or CNBC.com isn't always the full price being paid. These days, any company that needs oil shipped by sea, rail or truck will pay a hefty premium over the price of the oil itself. So, while the volume of oil moving through Hormuz is closing in on pre-war levels, costs are not. And there's no sign that they're going anywhere but up.