{"id":527319,"date":"2026-03-10T18:15:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T18:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/527319\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T18:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T18:15:09","slug":"aramco-warns-of-oil-market-catastrophe-unless-strait-of-hormuz-reopens-soon-aramco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/527319\/","title":{"rendered":"Aramco warns of oil market \u2018catastrophe\u2019 unless strait of Hormuz reopens soon | Aramco"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saudi Arabia\u2019s state oil company has warned of \u201ccatastrophic consequences\u201d for the world\u2019s oil markets if the US-Israeli war with Iran continues to block shipping in the strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

The world\u2019s biggest oil exporter expects to be able to supply the market with about 70% of its usual crude output despite the stranglehold on the vital trade artery, but its chief executive warned that there would still be \u201cdrastic\u201d consequences for the world economy if the disruption continues.<\/p>\n

Oil shipments from the Middle East have been blocked from passing through the narrow waterway since the US strikes on Iran<\/a> 11 days ago, erasing about 20m barrels of oil from the global market every day.<\/p>\n

\"HowHow the Iran conflict could affect prices around the world \u2013 video explainer <\/p>\n

Amin Nasser, the chief executive of Aramco<\/a>, said: \u201cWhile we have faced disruptions in the past, this one by far is the biggest crisis the region\u2019s oil and gas industry has faced.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aramco has been unable to ship crude cargoes out of the Gulf due to the disruption, but it hopes to meet customer demands by flowing crude through the east-west pipeline to the Red Sea port of Yanbu where it could be shipped to buyers.<\/p>\n

The company plans to ramp up shipments through the pipeline to reach its full capacity of 7m barrels a day in the next couple of days, it said. About 2m barrels a day will be sent to Saudi Arabia\u2019s refineries in the west of the country, leaving 5m barrels a day for the global crude market. This represents about 70% of the kingdom\u2019s usual exports.<\/p>\n

Typically about 100 tankers a day pass through the narrow waterway lying south of Iran, but the number has dwindled to single digits after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened to \u201cset ablaze\u201d any vessel using the trade route, which carries a fifth of the world\u2019s oil and liquefied natural gas.<\/p>\n

The disruption caused global oil market prices to surge to highs of in $119 a barrel this week<\/a>, the highest price since 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine, raising fears for the global economy.<\/p>\n

Aramco said that it is now meeting most of its customers\u2019 needs partly by tapping crude held in storage outside the Gulf region. He said these stores could not be used for \u201can extended period of time, but for the time being, we are capitalising on it\u201d.<\/p>\n

Nasser said: \u201cThere would be catastrophic consequences for the world\u2019s oil markets, and the longer the disruption goes on \u2026 the more drastic the consequences for the global economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

G7 leaders on Tuesday called on the world\u2019s energy watchdog to prepare scenarios for the release of emergency oil stockpiles to help cool the markets following historic market price gains recorded in recent days. However, the bloc stopped short of giving the green light to a stock release, which has happened on only five occasions in the history of the market.<\/p>\n

The International Energy Agency, which was set up following the Middle East oil crisis in the 1970s, requires its 32 member countries to hold at least 90 days worth of emergency crude supplies in reserve so they can be released to the market in the event of a supply shock.<\/p>\n

In total, IEA members hold more than 1.2bn barrels of public oil reserves, and a further 600m barrels of industry stocks held under government obligation. In addition, China is estimated to have record high levels of crude in storage. The world\u2019s biggest energy importer, which is not a member of the IEA, may have up to 1.4bn barrels of oil in reserves.<\/p>\n

The hope that global leaders may be inching towards an intervention to temper the oil market volatility helped oil market prices to ease from the four-year highs earlier this week. The price of Brent crude fell to just below $90 a barrel by the end of the trading day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia\u2019s state oil company has warned of \u201ccatastrophic consequences\u201d for the world\u2019s oil markets if the US-Israeli…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-527319","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}