\n \u201cOnce the national security objectives of Operation Epic Fury are fully achieved, Americans will see oil and gas prices drop rapidly, potentially even lower than they were prior to the start of the operation, and we will live in a world where Iran can no longer threaten the United States or our allies with a nuclear bomb,\u201d Leavitt said.\n <\/p>\n
\n But it won\u2019t be that easy \u2013 even if Trump is in the midst of another TACO, the Wall Street acronym for \u201cTrump Always Chickens Out.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n To get oil prices back to where they were before the war started, the US military will first need to secure the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow body of water through which 20% of the world\u2019s oil travels. Iran said it would set fire to oil tankers passing through the strait, effectively locking much of the world\u2019s oil in place during the war. And Iran has begun to lay mines<\/a> in the waterway, sources told CNN\u2019s Natasha Bertrand.\n <\/p>\n \n Even if America\u2019s military could achieve that on Trump\u2019s timetable of one more week, oil industry analysts remain skeptical that the strait could fully reopen and production in the region come back online for at least a month, if not much longer.\n <\/p>\n \n That means high oil prices could be here for a while \u2013 and gas prices, which follow oil prices with a lag, could stay elevated for even longer.\n <\/p>\n \n The US military is developing plans to eliminate<\/a> Iran\u2019s ability to attack oil tankers.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI will not broadcast what those options look like, but just know the president is not afraid to use them,\u201d Leavitt said Tuesday.\n <\/p>\n \n Meanwhile, the administration has said the Navy would at some point start escorting oil ships through the waterway. So far, that hasn\u2019t happened, Leavitt confirmed Tuesday. If Iran increases its mining of the strait, that could complicate matters.\n <\/p>\n \n The number of oil tankers traversing the strait has been in the single digits or zero each day for the past week, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, compared to about 50 per day prior to the war.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWords aren\u2019t going to talk oil prices back to normal; the strait are the key to the return to normalcy,\u201d said Dan Pickering, founder and chief investment officer at Pickering Energy Partners. \u201cYou can\u2019t get back to normal with 15 million barrels per day being bottlenecked and off the market.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Oil prices have tumbled on the prospect that Trump may be in the midst of another TACO. Hopeful that the prospect of rising inflation will force the president\u2019s hand, oil fell to around $90 a barrel Wednesday after surging past $100 a barrel Monday.\n <\/p>\n \n But oil and gas still have a long way to go before returning to normal: Oil was trading at around $60 a barrel before the war. And US gas prices, which are averaging more than $3.50 a gallon, were below $3 just before the United States and Israel attacked Iran.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cFor prices to return to normal levels sustainably, this will probably require a\u202fcredible neutralization of Iran\u2019s ability to disrupt maritime transit,\u201d said Luisa Palacios, the former Citgo chairwoman and current managing director of Columbia University\u2019s Center on Global Energy Policy.\n <\/p>\n \n Returning the Strait of Hormuz to typical traffic could take 1 to 3 months, according to Homayoun Falakshahi, lead crude research analyst at Kpler. Only then will oil fall to $60 a barrel again.\n <\/p>\n \n That\u2019s in part a function of the complexity of war. After the United States and Israel took out its supreme leader, Iran may hesitate to quickly lay down its arms. And taking out every drone and every mine that threatens ships in the strait probably isn\u2019t possible, meaning vessels may require naval escorts for a while.\n <\/p>\n \n Even if strait traffic reopens soon, the dangerous and complex process of protecting those tankers could maintain a bottleneck for a month or longer, noted Jay Hatfield, CEO & founder of Infrastructure Capital.\n <\/p>\n \n Another factor: A significant portion \u2013 about 7 million barrels \u2013 of Middle Eastern oil production came offline in the past week, because there was no place to put the crude they were pumping.\n <\/p>\n \n Turning those spigots on isn\u2019t like flipping a switch. Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said during an earnings call this week the company could start to ramp up in a matter of days once the strait reopens. But it can take a week or two to fully restore production, according to Bob Yawger, commodity specialist at Mizuho.\n <\/p>\n \n And production can\u2019t fully come back online until there are tankers sailing through the strait to collect and deliver the oil. Storage space is at capacity right now.\n <\/p>\n \n That\u2019s why a number of oil analysts expect prices to remain high until the industry gets clarity \u2013 not just rhetoric \u2013 about when and how ships could start to navigate the strait again.\n <\/p>\n \n Even then, the market may continue to assign oil a \u201crisk premium\u201d that will keep it priced well above regular levels \u2013 at least until investors feel Iran no longer poses a threat to vessels in the region.\n <\/p>\n \n That could be a while: The US Energy Information Administration on Tuesday forecast<\/a> that Brent crude, the international benchmark, will trade above $95 a barrel over the next two months, before falling to $80 a barrel in the summer and $70 a barrel in the fall. It said its forecast is based on assumptions about the duration of the Middle East conflict and oil production outages.\n <\/p>\n \n If oil stays that high, gas prices could near $4 a gallon and hover there until oil prices come down meaningfully \u2013 and stay lower. In the summer of 2022, when oil fell by $20 to below $100 in a matter of weeks, gas stayed well above $4 for several months before falling.\n <\/p>\n![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026-03-03t133412z-1061276411-rc20xja5gjrk-rtrmadp-3-iran-crisis-emirates.JPG\")
<\/p>\n