Energy Secretary Wright says U.S. ‘not ready’ to escort tankers through Strait of Hormuz yet
The US Navy is not prepared to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in an interview with CNBC on Thursday.
“It’s going to happen relatively soon, but it can’t happen right now,” Wright said. “We are simply not ready. Right now, all of our military assets are focused on destroying Iran’s offensive capabilities and the manufacturing industry that provides its offensive capabilities.”
The Navy will likely be in a position to escort the tankers by the end of this month, Wright said. “I’ll be at the Pentagon later today; this is what the military is working on,” the energy secretary said.
International benchmark Brent oil prices reached $100 per barrel early Thursday as attacks on commercial ships in the Persian Gulf continued.
Wright’s comments follow an erroneous claim on social media on Tuesday that the Navy was escorting a tanker across the Bosphorus. The post was quickly deleted from his account, but caused oil prices to fall more than 17% to their lowest level on Tuesday.
More than 30 countries agreed on Wednesday to inject 400 million barrels of oil from their stockpiles into the market to address a massive supply disruption triggered by the Iran war. The United States will extract 172 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as part of this effort.
This was the largest release of emergency stocks in history, but this action failed to calm the oil market as the security situation in the Persian Gulf remained precarious.
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