Tehran's account
If Iran's oil cannot reach the market, no one's will. The price is the cost of the attack on Iran, and it should be sent to those who began it.
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The war has closed, reopened and closed again the passage through which a fifth of the world's oil and much of its gas is shipped. Prices have twice passed a hundred dollars a barrel. The countries that pay most for this are not the ones fighting.
The wider confrontation, its history and each side's full account: Iran in regional and international confrontation. The passage itself: The Strait of Hormuz.
Oil rose above a hundred dollars on 9 September as Iran's own exports collapsed, and Brent passed 107 after strikes on Saudi Arabia on 14 September. Qatar, whose gas cannot leave the Gulf, is in talks to buy American gas for its customers. President Trump has said the war will end after the elections in November.
Who carries the cost of the war, and who gains from it. Asia and Europe import the Gulf's energy; the United States exports its own. The Gulf producers earn more per barrel and cannot ship the barrels. Iran, which can sell almost nothing while blockaded, holds the one lever that makes everyone else want the war to stop. Each spike shifts the pressure: onto Washington before an election, onto Tehran from its Asian customers, onto the Gulf states from both.
If Iran's oil cannot reach the market, no one's will. The price is the cost of the attack on Iran, and it should be sent to those who began it.
Iran is holding the world economy hostage. The United States produces more oil and gas than any country and can supply its friends; the pain is temporary and Iran's is permanent.
Their customers are being taught that Gulf energy is unsafe. High prices are no gain when tankers cannot sail, fields are under fire, and buyers sign long contracts elsewhere.
China, India, Japan, Korea and Europe did not choose this war and are paying for it in inflation and lost growth. Most refused to join the American naval operation and ask both sides for the same thing: an open strait.
Tehran's leaves out that its best customers, in Asia, are the ones it hurts most.
Washington's leaves out that American producers and gas exporters profit from the shortage, and that petrol prices at home are why the war has a political deadline.
The Gulf producers' leaves out the windfall on every barrel they do ship by pipeline around the strait.
The importers' leaves out that years of buying discounted Iranian oil helped finance one side of the war they deplore.
Names and terms the sides do not share. This page keeps them out of its own voice.
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