Wright Says Hormuz Can Open Without Clearing All Mines

Not all mines placed by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz need to removed for ships to resume transiting the vital passageway, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Tuesday. 

“You just need a pathway for ships to be moved in and out,” Wright said in an interview on the sidelines of the Three Seas Summit and Business Forum in Dubrovnik. “I think that can happen quickly.”

Iran has said it laid mines along the most frequently used routes of the narrow waterway, through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas transited before the US and Israel launched a war on the Islamic Republic. The strait has been effectively closed since late February, leading to massive supply disruptions and spiking prices of oil and products such as diesel and gasoline.

Shipping companies have been highly reluctant to attempt to navigate Hormuz, fearing seizure, mines, and a lack of other safety guarantees. 

Fully clearing the strait of mines could take six months, a senior US Defense Department official said during a classified Congressional briefing last week, the Washington Post reported.

The longer the Strait of Hormuz is shut the longer a historic energy disruption will continue. In the US, a surge in pump prices comes months before President Donald Trump’s Republican party faces midterm elections. 

Wright, speaking in a separate Bloomberg Television interview Tuesday, also said the US plans to announce “historic” pipeline agreements that will lead to increases in the amount of US oil and natural gas Europe imports as part of the Trump “Peace Pipeline Agenda.”