The U.S. energy secretary said on Sunday that it might not be long before the many tankers stranded in the Persian Gulf start carrying oil out to the world again.
“We’re not too long, I think, before you will see more regular resumption of ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz,” Chris Wright, the energy secretary, said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Fearing an attack by Iran, nearly all ship operators have stopped their tankers going through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway on the southern coast of Iran through which a fifth of the world’s oil usually travels. Several tankers have been hit since the United States and Israel started their attacks on Iran on Feb. 28.
Mr. Wright said that, “worst case,” it would take “a few weeks” for normal numbers of tankers to return to the strait.
The tanker standstill is cutting the supply of oil products to world markets, and has led to a steep increase in the price of oil and begun to push up the cost of gasoline as well.
Mr. Wright said the United States had successfully destroyed many of the weapons that Iran might use to strike ships. “That work is going tremendously well,” he said.
He also said that a “large tanker” went through the Strait of Hormuz “about 24 hours ago.” He did not identify the tanker, and a spokesman for the Department of Energy did not respond to requests for more details on the ship.
A small tanker apparently carrying fuel oil went through the strait in the last 24 hours, said Dimitris Ampatzidis, a senior risk and compliance analyst at Kpler, a global ship tracking firm. Its transponder, a device that transmits a ship’s location, was on, which is why it could be tracked. Vessels sometimes turn off their transponders to avoid being spotted in the strait.
Mr. Ampatzidis said the vessel, the Parimal, appeared to have connections to Iran.
“I don’t believe this vessel can be used as an indication that traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is returning to normal,” he said.
The cost of insuring vessels to carry oil through the strait has soared to prohibitively expensive levels. The Trump administration has said it would provide insurance at affordable rates to help get tankers moving again, saying on Friday that it had a plan insure up to $20 billion in losses. Shipping analysts have said, however, that the insurance commitment might have to be much larger.
President Trump has also said that the U.S. Navy might provide an escort force to protect tankers as they travel through the strait. Asked Sunday on CNN when the escort might begin, Mr. Wright did not give a date but he said that U.S. forces were focusing on trying to diminish Iran’s missile and drone capability “to reduce their ability to disrupt traffic.”
Peter Eavis reports on the business of moving stuff around the world.
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