HAS A NEW OIL WAR BEEN WAGED?

Asharq Al-Awsat, London, October 8

Last week, a giant fleet of cargo ships left the port of Kharg in Iran and set off toward international waters. Shortly thereafter, the ships, which carried over two million barrels of Iranian oil, disappeared from international radars and maritime registries. This was not accidental. The assumption is that the Iranian vessels turned off their electrical repeaters in an effort to mask their shipping route.

This was their first attempt to test whether Iran could defy the US sanctions without being detected. Oil is hugely important to the Iranian regime. Well over half of the Iranian GDP is generated from oil sales. This figure does not even take into account the peripheral industries that exist around the extraction, production and sales of oil, which constitute a large portion of the Iranian economy. Therefore, it is unsurprising that Iran will do anything it can to hide its operations and continue its exports.

One plan might revolve around shipping Iranian oil to Russian refineries, where it will be re-branded and sold to markets abroad. The Russians, who are themselves targets of US sanctions, will gladly cooperate with their Iranian counterparts. Of course, modern technological solutions would allow the US to monitor any of these vessels and sanction those who violate the sanction regime. But there is yet another problem: the price of oil. With Iranian oil taken off the market, there will likely be a shortage in the global supply of oil. Unless a different producer compensates for the Iranian share in the market – something that Saudi Arabia has considered doing – it is likely that oil prices around the world will increase.

This is Tehran’s ultimate doomsday weapon. The Iranian regime hopes that soaring oil prices around the world might push the US to reconsider its sanctions. The price of a single barrel of oil has already been on the rise, passing the $80 mark line – the highest since 2014. It is likely that these prices will continue to rise, passing even $100 per barrel by the end of the year.

– Abd al-Rahman al-Rashed