IRAN RAISES TEMPERATURE AT CRITICAL STRAIT

AFPC Eurasia Security Watch ^ | 1/5/2012 | Jeff M. Smith, ed.

[bruinbirdman]

The oil minister of the United Arab Emirates has announced that a new oil pipeline bypassing the Strait of Hormuz is nearly complete. The Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline project would ship crude from the UAE’s main oil producing region to the port of Fujairah on the country’s eastern coast, bypassing the vital Strait. The timing of the announcement could not be more prescient; Iranian officials have recently made their most threatening remarks to date about “closing” the Strait of Hormuz as fresh U.S. and international sanctions have put the regime on the defensive.

In recent weeks alone, the head of Iran’s navy boasted that closing the strait would be “as easy as drinking a glass of water”; Iran conducted 10 days of naval exercises near the strait, test-firing several missiles; the head of Iran’s parliamentary national security and foreign policy commission, Aladdin Brujerdi, stated that “if Iran’s oil exports from the Persian Gulf are sanctioned, then no one will have the right to export oil through the Strait of Hormuz”; and Iranian officials warned the U.S. that one of its aircraft carriers, the USS John Stennis, which was recently in the Persian Gulf performing drills, would be attacked if it returned to the Persian Gulf. (The Pentagon waved off the threat, insisting it had no plans to curtail any military maneuvers or deployments). The Strait of Hormuz, 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, hosts 14 crude oil tankers a day, carrying 17 million barrels or 35 percent of the world’s seaborne oil shipments, 85% of which are destined for Asia.

[Johnny B.]

Hmm... could they possibly be stupid enough to think they could "corner" the oil market by blocking the Strait, while pumping their oil through a pipeline?

It's a lot easier to stop oil flowing through a pipeline than it is to stop it going through the Strait.

[musicman]