Trump has averted an energy crisis |
Have markets and governments horribly underestimated the fallout from the Iran war, or is it the doomsters who have got it horribly wrong? President Trump’s announcement has rather caught the world off guard. This morning, he posted on Truth social saying that he is seeking a negotiated settlement with Iran and has postponed his planned attacks on energy infrastructure. Many expected a huge escalation in hostilities this week. Could this be yet another example of TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out), or was his threat to bomb energy infrastructure another crafted bluff – and that order to the global economy will be swiftly restored?
It certainly does not seem to be what the president of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol, was expecting. He claimed yesterday that the world is underestimating the risks. He said that the effect of the closure of the Straits of Hormuz is the equivalent of the 1973 oil crisis and the 2022 gas crisis, provoked by the invasion of Ukraine, combined. The 1973 crisis, he said, removed five million barrels of oil per day from global markets and the Ukraine crisis removed 75 billion cubic metres of natural gas. The current........