The U.S. continues to seek to pile pressure on Iran with the naval blockade outside the Strait of Hormuz as the Trump Administration signals the blockade is yielding results and will not be lifted anytime soon.
“While the surviving IRGC Leaders are trapped like drowning rats in a sewage pipe, Iran’s creaking oil industry is starting to shut in production thanks to the U.S. BLOCKADE,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a post on X on Tuesday.
“Pumping will soon collapse. GASOLINE SHORTAGES IN IRAN NEXT!,” Bessent added.
In another post, the Secretary wrote that “Kharg Island, Iran’s primary oil export terminal, is soon nearing storage capacity, which will force the regime to reduce oil production, resulting in an additional approximately $170 million per day in lost revenue, and causing permanent damage to Iran’s oil infrastructure.”
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“Treasury will continue to exert maximum pressure and any person, vessel, or entity facilitating illicit flows to Tehran risks exposure to U.S. sanctions,” Bessent added.
U.S. President Donald Trump has instructed aides to prepare for an extended blockade of Iran, U.S. officials told the Wall Street Journal earlier this week.
The President preferred to keep the blockade and try to choke off Iran’s oil exports and revenues to the other options such as renewing bombing of Iran or walking away from the war, the officials told the Journal.
Meanwhile, at least six Iranian tankers laden with oil are loitering in a cluster near the port of Chabahar in Iran, outside the Strait of Hormuz but just inside the U.S. naval blockade line, satellite images and maritime intelligence analyses have shown.
The cluster of about half a dozen Iranian vessels signals that Iran continues to load oil on Iranian tankers that are trying to leave the Middle East region. On the other hand, the piling up of ships outside the Strait of Hormuz but inside the U.S. blockade line suggests that the American interception of vessels is working to at least delay Iranian oil exports.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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