Iran has warned that “not a litre” of oil will be exported from the Middle East until the United States and Israel stop bombing it. The warning comes on the heels of statements made by President Trump that the war would be over “very soon”, which toppled oil prices from peaks reached on Monday. “We are the ones who will determine the end of the war,” a spokesman for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said in a statement today, as reported by Reuters. The threat followed remarks made by President Trump that included threats for the attacks to actually intensify if Iran continued to prevent oil from leaving the Middle East. “If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far,” the U.S. president said on TruthSocial. “Additionally, we will take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back, as a Nation, again — Death, Fire, and Fury will reign upon them — But I hope, and pray, that it does not happen!” Trump also wrote on his social network, adding that this was a gift from the U.S. to China and all other oil importers that bought Middle Eastern oil. The situation appears to be of the stalemate sort right now, which suggests the recent reversal of the oil rally may end, after traders rushed to sell on Monday, following Trump’s remark about the war ending “very soon”. The selloff pushed Brent crude and WTI below $100. The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed, prices will likely start climbing again although more slowly, if Trump goes ahead with the sanction-lifting on “some countries”.
IEA warns Strait of Hormuz risks are rising
The International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Monday that it discussed releasing emergency oil stocks with G7 finance ministers amid worsening conflict in the Middle East, which is increasing risks to global crude supplies. IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said after the meeting, held at the invitation of French Minister Roland Lescure, that oil market conditions had deteriorated in recent days. “In addition to the challenges of transit through the Strait of Hormuz, a substantial amount of oil production has been curtailed. This is creating significant and growing risks for the market,” he said. Birol added that IEA member states hold more than 1.2 billion barrels of public emergency reserves, alongside another 600 million barrels of industry stocks under government obligation.
NN: Emergency reserves are enough to cover at best 24 days of Straights disruptions… A sick joke.
Saudi Arabia IS reducing oil production…..CME energy market hits record daily volume
Saudi Arabia has started reducing oil production as the crucial Strait of Hormuz chokepoint remains at a near-standstill, even as the kingdom rushes to boosts exports through an alternative route. The information on the Saudi cuts, which comes from a person familiar with the operations, follows reductions by other OPEC nations including the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq. Analysts estimate Saudi Arabia has larger storage capacity than some of its neighbors, indicating the kingdom may be pre-emptively lowering output to keep oil fields running for longer without having to completely shut them down. The oil-market’s worst fears have been realized this month as the war in the Middle East all-but closed Hormuz to shipping, forcing a swathe of massive projects to lower output and causing oil prices to surge above $100 a barrel. It’s thrown supply chains into chaos, and the longer the hostilities continue bigger the risks of a spike in global inflation. Saudi Arabia produces about 10 million barrels a day of oil and exports about 7 million a day. Aramco has been diverting some of those shipments away from its usual Hormuz route toward Yanbu in the Red Sea. But the pipeline that carries those volumes has capacity to transport 5 million barrels a day, which isn’t enough to fully replace the export volumes.
CME energy market hits record daily volume
Derivatives marketplace CME Group revealed on Monday that its energy complex surpassed the previous daily record of 7.9 million contracts set on March 3, 2026, setting a new single-day volume record of 8.3 million contracts. Additionally, CME Group Refined Products established a new single-day record of 1.25 million contracts traded on March 3, 2026, driven by RBOB Gasoline and New York Harbor Ultra-low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD) futures and options. “As geopolitical shifts drive uncertainty throughout the global energy sector, market participants are turning to CME Group to manage their risk … In these volatile market conditions, clients continue to rely on our liquid markets and benchmark products to discover prices, hedge and adjust exposure within their portfolios,” Peter Keavey, Global Head of Energy Products at CME Group Peter Keavey noted.
WTI up 27%, Brent up 25%
Crude prices continued to soar as markets monitored the latest developments in the Middle East. Oil output in the Persian Gulf fell considerably as the Iran conflict prevented export through the Strait of Hormuz. However, United States President Donald Trump claimed that the “short-term oil prices” will go down as soon as Iran’s threat is neutralized. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for settlements in April skyrocketed 27.61% at 10:45 pm ET, going for $116.04 per barrel, while Brent for deliveries in May jumped 25.07% and went for $116.74 per barrel.
Oil built the Persian Gulf. Desalinated water keeps it alive. War could threaten both
As missiles and drones curtail energy production across the Persian Gulf, analysts warn that water, not oil, may be the resource most at risk in the energy-rich but arid region. On Sunday, Bahrain accused Iran of damaging one of its desalination plants. Earlier, Iran said a U.S. airstrike had damaged an Iranian plant. Hundreds of desalination plants sit along the Persian Gulf coast, putting individual systems that supply water to millions within range of Iranian missile or drone strikes. Without them, major cities could not sustain their current populations. In Kuwait, about 90% of drinking water comes from desalination, along with roughly 86% in Oman and about 70% in Saudi Arabia. The technology removes salt from seawater — most commonly by pushing it through ultrafine membranes in a process known as reverse osmosis — to produce the freshwater that sustains cities, hotels, industry and some agriculture across one of the world’s driest regions. For people living outside the Middle East, the main concern of the Iran war has been the impact on energy prices. The Gulf produces about a third of the world’s crude exports and energy revenues underpin national economies. Fighting has already halted tanker traffic through key shipping routes and disrupted port activity, forcing some producers to curb exports as storage tanks fill.
But the infrastructure that keeps Gulf cities supplied with drinking water is equally vulnerable.
“Everyone thinks of Saudi Arabia and their neighbors as petrostates. But I call them saltwater kingdoms. They’re human-made fossil-fueled water superpowers,” said Michael Christopher Low, director of the Middle East Center at the University of Utah. “It’s both a monumental achievement of the 20th century and a certain kind of vulnerability.” The war that began Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran has already brought fighting close to key desalination infrastructure. On March 2, Iranian strikes on Dubai’s Jebel Ali port landed some 12 miles from one of the world’s largest desalination plants, which produces much of the city’s drinking water. Damage also was reported at the Fujairah F1 power and water complex in the United Arab Emirates, and at Kuwait’s Doha West desalination plant. The damage at the two facilities appeared to have resulted from nearby port attacks or debris from intercepted drones. On Sunday, Bahrain accused Iran of indiscriminately attacking civilian targets and damaging one of its desalination plants, though it didn’t say supplies have gone offline. The island nation, home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, has been among the countries targeted by Iranian drones and missiles. Earlier, Iran said a U.S. airstrike damaged an Iranian desalination plant. Abbas Araghchi, the country’s foreign minister, said the strike on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz had cut into the water supply for 30 villages. He warned that in doing so “the U.S. set this precedent, not Iran.” Many Gulf desalination plants are physically integrated with power stations as co‑generation facilities, meaning attacks on electrical infrastructure could also hinder water production. Even where plants are connected to national grids with backup supply routes, disruptions can cascade across interconnected systems, said David Michel, senior fellow for water security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It’s an asymmetrical tactic,” he said. “Iran doesn’t have the same capacity to strike back at the United States and Israel. But it does have this possibility to impose costs on the Gulf countries to push them to intervene or call for a cessation of hostilities.” Desalination plants have multiple stages — intake systems, treatment facilities, energy supplies — and damage to any part of that chain can interrupt production, according to Ed Cullinane, Middle East editor at Global Water Intelligence, a publisher serving the water industry. “None of these assets are any more protected than any of the municipal areas that are currently being hit by ballistic missiles or drones,” Cullinane said. Gulf governments and U.S. officials have long recognized the risks these systems pose for regional stability: if major desalination plants were knocked offline, some cities could lose most of their drinking water within days. A 2010 CIA analysis warned attacks on desalination facilities could trigger national crises in several Gulf states, and prolonged outages could last months if critical equipment were destroyed.
More than 90% of the Gulf’s desalinated water comes from just 56 plants, the report stated, and “each of these critical plants is extremely vulnerable to sabotage or military action.”
A leaked 2008 U.S. diplomatic cable warned the Saudi capital of Riyadh “would have to evacuate within a week” if either the Jubail desalination plant on the Gulf coast or its pipelines or associated power infrastructure were seriously damaged. Saudi Arabia has since invested in pipeline networks, storage reservoirs and other redundancies designed to cushion short-term disruptions, as has the UAE. But smaller states such as Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait have fewer backup supplies.
The threat is not hypothetical
During Iraq’s 1990-1991 invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent Gulf War, Iraqi forces sabotaged power stations and desalination facilities as they retreated, said the University of Utah’s Low. At the same time, millions of barrels of crude oil were deliberately released into the Persian Gulf, creating one of the largest oil spills in history. Yemen’s Houthi rebels have targeted Saudi desalination facilities amid regional tensions. The incidents underscore a broader erosion of long-standing norms against attacking civilian infrastructure, Michel said, noting conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and Iraq. International humanitarian law, including provisions of the Geneva Conventions, prohibit targeting civilian infrastructure indispensable to the survival of the population, including drinking water facilities. The potential for harmful cyberattacks on water infrastructure is a growing concern. In 2023 and 2024, U.S. officials blamed Iran-aligned groups for hacking into several American water utilities. After a fifth year of extreme drought, water levels in Tehran’s five reservoirs plunged to some 10% of their capacity, prompting President Masoud Pezeshkian to warn the capital may have to be evacuated. Unlike many Gulf states that rely heavily on desalination, Iran still gets most of its water from rivers, reservoirs and depleted underground aquifers. The country operates a relatively small number of desalination plants, supplying only a fraction of national demand. Iran is racing to expand desalination along its southern coast and pump some of the water inland, but infrastructure constraints, energy costs and international sanctions have sharply limited scalability. “They were already thinking of evacuating the capital last summer,” Cullinane of Global Water Intelligence said. “I don’t dare to wonder what it’s going to be like this summer under sustained fire, with an ongoing economic catastrophe and a serious water crisis.”
NN: Its not just the oil. Its the water too. And one little drone can reduce it all to a pile of rubble. No oil… No water and that is a big awh shit
UAE and Kuwait Start Oil Output Cuts After Hormuz Blockage
The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp. said it was lowering production at both its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas, to maritime traffic following Iranian threats to shipping. That’s clogged up exports from the world’s top oil-producing region and helped drive prices in London to the highest close in more than two years at almost $93 a barrel, sending consumers searching for alternatives and threatening to push global inflation higher.
Hostilities in the region have interrupted production and tanker traffic
Kuwait’s oil cutback started with about 100,000 barrels a day as of early Saturday and is expected to almost triple on Sunday, with further gradual reductions depending on storage levels and the status of Hormuz, a person with direct knowledge of the plan said, asking not to be named because the details are private.
The UAE, which pumped more than 3.5 million barrels a day as OPEC’s third-biggest producer in January, is using export capacity that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz, and its international storage facilities, to ensure supply to global markets. Adnoc operates a 1.5 million barrel-a-day pipeline to Fujairah on the UAE’s western coast to avoid the strait. Adnoc said its onshore operations are continuing normally. Cutbacks by the two OPEC members follow a swathe of others in the region. Iraq started holding back production earlier this week as storage tanks started filling up, while Saudi Arabia shut its biggest refinery and Qatar closed the world’s largest liquefied natural gas export plant after drone attacks. Kuwait Petroleum declared force majeure — a legal clause allowing a company not to fulfill contractual obligations because of circumstances outside its control — on sales of oil and refinery products, according to a notice seen by Bloomberg. The country produced about 2.57 million barrels a day of oil in January, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The only route out for the supply is through the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia, the biggest producer in the region, has diverted some of its crude away from this route toward Yanbu in the Red Sea.
Mideast Oil Producers Against the Clock
Hormuz halt may exhaust oil and fuel storage in weeks or days
Kuwait had earlier begun lowering processing rates at its refineries because of the fuller tanks. The nation’s plants — Al-Zour, Mina Al-Ahmadi and Mina Abdullah — have a combined capacity of about 1.4 million barrels a day. Al-Zour is one of the biggest oil-processing facilities in the Middle East. US President Donald Trump said he expects crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a “minor excursion” that’s likely to continue “for a little while.” “We figured oil prices would go up, which they will,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday. “They’ll also come down. They’ll come down very fast. And we will have gotten rid of a major, major cancer on the face of the Earth.” The UAE and Kuwait, like other Gulf nations, have been heavily targeted by Iranian missiles and drones in the region’s expanding war. The US embassy in Kuwait has been hit and the US consulate in Dubai targeted, along with other infrastructure in the two countries.
NN; Easy to shut down production. Months to restart and months to deliver. $5.00 gasoline here we come and $15o crude.
Iran reaches consensus on Khamenei’s successor
Iran’s Assembly of Experts member Ayatollah Mohammad-Mahdi Mirbagheri stated that the country’s deliberative body managed to reach a “decisive and unanimous opinion, which is the opinion of the majority” on who will be the successor to the country’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (pictured), Mehr news agency reported on Sunday. According to the report, Mirbagheri said that there are still “some obstacles” that need to be resolved regarding the process, but that “great efforts to determine the leadership” have been made. “The delay in electing the third leader is bitter and unwanted for everyone, and there is no alternative, so we should not have bad thoughts about our representatives at this difficult time,” the representative of Zanjan in the Assembly of Experts, Hojjatoleslam Jafari, said.
Crude Closes Near $91 After Historic Rally
US oil posted the biggest weekly gain on record as the war in Iran upends critical energy market flows, with shipping through the Strait of Hormuz at a near-total halt. West Texas Intermediate added 12% on Friday to settle just below $91 a barrel, the largest daily jump in almost six years, while Brent closed near $93 a barrel. Iran warned that the European Union is a “legitimate” target if it joins the war, adding to bullish momentum. The Wall Street Journal reported that Kuwait has begun cutting production at some oil fields after running out of places to store bottled-up crude, the latest sign of a hit to regional output. Citigroup Inc. estimates that the oil market is losing 7 million to 11 million barrels of daily supply due to the disruption through Hormuz. Crude surged even after US President Donald Trump signaled “imminent action” to reduce pressure on prices, while National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett denied that the White House would tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a cache of crude held in vast underground caverns, anytime soon. “We’ve got a whole flow chart of tools to use,” Hassett said during a Bloomberg Television interview. So far, the Treasury Department has eased curbs on India’s ability to buy Russian oil and the US International Development Finance Corp. announced a $20 billion plan for maritime reinsurance, including war risk, in the Gulf region. Japan was also reportedly considering tapping national reserves. No action has yet been taken, though market participants are speculating that a coordinated release from multiple nations’ emergency oil inventories could be enacted to maximize impact. Still, with no sign of a let-up in hostilities, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. flagged the risk of scenarios for oil topping $100 a barrel in the case of prolonged disruption. European diesel futures headed for a weekly gain of more than 50%, and central banks signaled unease about a possible resurgence in inflation. There has been a “near-total” pause in commercial traffic through Hormuz, according to the Joint Maritime Information Center, a multinational naval advisory group. The collapse stems from “security threats, insurance constraints, operational uncertainty and effective disruptions.” Some shippers are booking smaller vessels to transport oil from the US Gulf Coast to Asia as costs soar for the massive tankers typically used on those routes. Meanwhile, only nine empty VLCCs remain available to store crude from major Middle East producers. Once those are filled, onshore storage tanks will fill rapidly. Oil markets have been rocked by the conflict, which has ensnared about a dozen nations since the US and Israel launched their campaign on Feb. 28. As the fighting intensified, not only has shipping through the key strait all but ended, but some producers are starting to curb output. Refineries and tankers have also been hit. Qatar’s energy minister told the Financial Times that crude could soar to $150 a barrel in two to three weeks if tankers and other merchant vessels are unable to pass through Hormuz. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told NBC News his country had no intention to negotiate and was ready for a ground invasion, although Trump commented later to the same network that he was not thinking about such a move. Saudi Arabia has stepped up direct engagement with Iran to try and contain the war. Last year, about 20 million barrels of oil and petroleum products flowed through the Strait of Hormuz daily, according to a tally from the International Energy Agency. With importers struggling to secure barrels, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a short-term waiver to allow India to buy Russian crude. The move “only authorizes transactions involving oil already stranded at sea,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said. Indian refiners have already bought more than 10 million barrels of Russian crude, according to people with direct knowledge of the deals. Much of that may have been purchased even before the one-month waiver announced late Thursday in Washington. India’s Reliance Industries Ltd. is seeking to buy Russian oil, a person familiar with the matter said. Goldman Sachs warned that a prolonged disruption at Hormuz — which links the Persian Gulf to global markets and typically carries about one-fifth of global oil flows — could lift prices far higher, although the bank’s base case at present is for a gradual recovery of shipments and futures to average $76 a barrel in the second quarter. “Let’s say you have another five weeks of very low flows of oil through the strait,” Samantha Dart, the co-head of global commodities research at the Wall Street lender, told Bloomberg Television, speaking before the JMIC advisory was issued. “It is possible we would see Brent prices cross the $100-per-barrel threshold.” In Asia, signs of strain for top economies are mounting. China has told major refiners to suspend exports of diesel and gasoline, reflecting efforts to prioritize domestic needs. Elsewhere, Japanese refiners asked their government to release oil from strategic reserves.
Oil Prices
- WTI for April delivery climbed 12% to settle at $90.90 a barrel in New York.
- Brent for May settlement gained 8.5% to settle at $92.69 a barrel.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia raised the price of its main oil grade for buyers in Asia for April by the most since August 2022. Riyadh is also diverting millions of barrels to Red Sea ports to avoid Hormuz.
The options market may be adding fuel to the rally, as dealers who sold calls need to buy futures to rebalance hedges as prices rise through key strikes. There were large open positions in the April contract at $85 and May at $80 — levels that were blown through on Friday. NB: Can you believe these ASSHOLES SHORTED THIS RALLY? IT SHOW YOU WHAT CONGENTIAL IDIOTS STAFF THE TRADING DESKS IN THESE TRILLION DOLLAR MARKETS!
Refined-product prices have also soared. In Europe, low-sulfur gasoil futures have rallied 50% on ICE Futures Europe so far this week, the biggest move on record. In a sign of near-term tightness, Brent’s prompt spread — the difference between its two nearest contracts — widened to roughly $5.50 a barrel in backwardation, a bullish pattern. A month ago, it was 58 cents.
US to send third aircraft carrier to join Iran war
The United States will deploy a third aircraft carrier to the Middle East to join the ongoing war against Iran, Fox News reported. USS George H.W. Bush will cross the Atlantic and head to the eastern Mediterranean after USS Gerald R. Ford carrier entered the Suez Canal and sailed into the Red Sea. It would be the third aircraft carrier deployed near Iran. The USS George H.W. Bush could take part in potential operations against the Yemeni Houthis, should they join the hostilities.
NN: This is called escalation. America is walking into a big AWH Shit! Go big or go home!! It looks like they decided to go BIG!!!!
Iran strikes with a drone Malta-flagged oil tanker in Strait of Hormuz
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) revealed on Saturday that it struck an oil tanker called “Prima,” which was sailing under Malta’s flag, in the Strait of Hormuz, claiming that the vessel ignored “repeated warnings” from the IRGC Navy. “It is worth noting that the strategic Strait of Hormuz has been under control for the eighth day due to the malicious aggression of American terrorists, the martyrdom of the Leader of the Islamic Ummah, and the aggression against the Persian Gulf region and the Strait of Hormuz, and oil tankers and commercial vessels allied with the warring countries are not allowed to pass through this strait,” IRGC stated. Meanwhile, the United States announced a $20 billion reinsurance program yesterday for oil tankers and other vessels to promote maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz amid the ongoing conflict in the region and Iran’s threats to vessels attempting to go through the sea passage connecting the Persian Gulf to the open ocean.