Iran’s top negotiator said Sunday that the Strait of Hormuz will stay closed until Washington meets a list of seven demands, a hard line that leaves the world’s most important oil route in limbo and energy markets bracing for more pain.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, said the waterway will not reopen until the conditions, which Tehran ties to the Islamabad memorandum, are met. He told lawmakers that Iran would keep negotiating but would not stand down militarily, and he warned of “new surprises” on the battlefield.
The message arrived a little more than a week after President Donald Trump turned down an Iranian plan to reopen the strait within seven days and restart nuclear talks. “I rejected their deal,” Trump told reporters on Sept. 26. The Wall Street Journal reported he has told aides he expects to resume bombing after the November midterm elections. Trump has also said he expects talks to resume this week.
Neither side has moved. Meanwhile, the bills keep landing.
Roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas moved through the strait before the war began in late February. The International Energy Agency has called the resulting loss of supply the largest disruption in the history of the oil market. Brent crude was trading around $101 on Monday, and has stayed above $100 for much of the past month despite a G7 decision to release 100 million barrels from emergency stockpiles. That release shaved only about $5 off prices.
Drivers are feeling it. GasBuddy data from recent weeks showed U.S. regular gasoline averaging $4.47 a gallon, up $1.53 since the fighting started, with diesel stuck near a record $6.43. In the United Arab Emirates, regulators raised retail fuel prices for a third straight month in October. Pump prices there are up more than 60% since February.
How much oil is actually moving is hard to pin down. One CNN estimate puts crude flows at about 80% of prewar levels. The IMF’s PortWatch tracker, by contrast, logged a single transit through the strait on Sept. 27, compared with a normal baseline of about 85 a day. Shipping analysts say the gap likely reflects the difference between selective passage under escort and ordinary commercial traffic, and neither number is a comfort to insurers. A maritime agency reported another tanker damaged in an attack near the strait over the weekend.
Economists have warned for months that even a deal would not fix things quickly. Analysts at Brookings have said it would take months for the oil market to look anything like normal after the strait reopens, and they have cautioned that prices could climb further for as long as it stays shut.
For now, both capitals are waiting for the other to blink. Iran says the strait is its leverage. The White House says it is winning. Everyone else is paying at the pump
