伊朗与乌克兰冲突致能源市场紧张，柴油供应承压

With us now, Bloomberg News is Middle East correspondent Abeer Abu Omar and Bloomberg oil products reporter Will Kubzansky. Let's kick it off with you, please. Bbeer, can you tell us do you have do we have any confirmation of these strikes near Carg Island last night? Yeah. Good morning, Jeff. So perhaps, Will can speak a little bit more about what is happening in in the Strait Of Hermos. But, yeah, those are confirmed attacks.

Explosions were heard near the Karg Island in the Strait Of Hermos. Of course, this is the main export hub of Iranian crude, exports essentially that The US naval blockade has been been maintained over over the course of the past six months or so now. You just go back to what has happened over the course of the past week, and that is essentially a return to military escalations here in the region with The US. President Trump starting attacks against Iran because he said that they had attempted to put mines in the Strait Of Hormuz yet again.

And then, of course, Iran retaliating against countries in the region similar to the same action that it had conducted over the course of this war. So you saw the likes of The United Arab Emirates here, Kuwait, Jordan, 10 ballistic missiles were intercepted over Jordanian skies at the initial strike, and then, of course, a flood of more Iranian retaliation. So that is what we kept an eye out on over the past of over the course of the past week, of course.

So that return to kinetic warfare was slightly concerning, and then we saw a little bit of de escalation. Then, of course, JD Vance, president Trump downplaying completely the prospects of this war, calling it a conflict, not even a war. So that we don't know just how it will settle with the 18 troop members that were killed from The United States, hundreds other injured, of course, and thirty five hundred Iranian casualties, including some that have died over the course of the past week.

And so we're seeing some kind of escalation in the region, signs of concern, Jeff, and really no end in sight when it comes to a return to those diplomacy talks even with the mediators still very much involved. That's right. And but we've been seeing, what I've been calling indefatigable optimism for some of these markets. Every time there is an inkling that there possibly could be a dealer negotiations, we see the markets react.

So the oil prices go down. People seem very optimistic. I'm wondering if we're reaching the end of that patience, and why we're seeing diesel especially, why those prices are spiking so dramatically this week after six months of this back and forth. Yeah. I would never underestimate the ability to be optimistic. With that said, diesel has particularly been strained not just because of what's going on in Iran, but what's going on in Russia.

Right? So Ukraine has been striking refineries repeatedly. That's been happening for months. Russia has banned exports of diesel. That leaves almost the whole world in a really precarious position. The world just sort of even before this was just a tight structure and refining capacity to make diesel. So it was already a precarious situation. And, yeah, just it's continued. The tightness will not really seem to stop anytime soon, and I think markets have caught up to the idea that we are in a distillates crisis right as peak demand season kicks off in the fall.

Abeer, the president likes to say that The US controls the strait. Is that accurate? That's a good question. It's it's really not clear, and I was really excited to answer that diesel question as well because we were reporting on it all week as well. Look. I mean, who controls the Strait Of Hermos? It's it's it's it's a mixed picture. Of course, The US naval blockade has been very successful at limiting down those Iranian crude exports, but Iran still maintains some kind of dominance over the Strait.

Of course, we had reported that deal between Oman and Iran over the course of the past month to assert some kind of dominance over the Strait Of Rimuth to start charging tools going forward. But it's not just that. It's the threat that Iran continues to pose over the movement of those ships and tankers. Even even last week, a couple of days ago, we were reporting about ships that were being hit. Supertankers linked to Saudi Arabia, to Gulf countries that were being hit either by unidentified projectiles or with the threat of Iran essentially posing on the crucial waterway with the IRGC continuing to say that they have the ability to hit those ships, and they will do so if they feel threatened.

Abeer, if you are excited about diesel, I would never stop anyone from talking about diesel. If you have more on that story, please feel free. I also wanna ask you about this issue of mines, which we've been talking about from day one. You know, we had these reports that there were mines, and this is this is all involved in in the reticence of some these shipping companies to send their ships ships through. But as this conflict has progressed, we haven't seen or heard of really any incidents of those ships hitting any of those mines.

And there was some reporting in the last couple weeks that maybe a lot of them weren't actually real live munitions, that they were, in fact, decoys. It was more of a SIOPs operation SIOPs from the Iranian government, or from Iranian operatives. What is the status of the strait as far as the mines? Have they been removed? Do we know what's going on there? And then feel free to add anything you would like to add to the diesel conversation.

Okay. So I'll focus on the mines for a little bit and maybe the diesel, conversation a little bit later. But when it comes to the mines, look, a lot of European countries, a lot of Gulf countries still believe that the threat of those mines exists. As a matter of fact, at the start of last week, we did hear reports about two ships being hit by mines or having exploded as a result of some mines. Our own Bloomberg economics teams estimate that the likelihood of mines completely being out of the equation is not very likely.

President Trump, of course, the US administration continues to say that they've completely demined the Strait Of Rimuz. And while there is some success to the attempts by The United States to demine the Strait, it's not completely likely for The United States to know, just where exactly those mines are. And, again, the the the response from Iran has continuously been the only people who know where these mines exist are some kind of Iranian officials in the echelons of power, not even all of them.

And so Iran, of course, had discussed with Oman some kind of mechanism to include European countries to come in and possibly demine the strait. But as of now, it's a murky picture. We're not entirely sure if the strait is completely demined. But the threat alone, Christina, that's what's important. The threat alone of possibly ships going through the Strait Of Hormuz and being exposed to that risk, that alone is keeping a lot of ships kind of hesitant.

Yeah. I mean, it impacts go through with the lights off. Yeah. It impacts insurance rate. It impacts the risk you have to pay sailors and mariners to get on those boats. Jeff, know you have another question for Will. Yeah. We just wanted to also talk about Ukraine. Will, to what extent is this now multiyear war in Ukraine affecting oil and gas supplies? Yeah. I mean, it's affecting them massively at this point in time.

Ukraine and Russia obviously weren't the main story for a while there, and, the war in Iran takes a lot of, precedence here. But, yeah, between attacks on the CPC, between attacks on tankers, sort of in and around the region, between those attacks on refineries we were talking about earlier, the crisis is very much centered around Russia and Ukraine. And I think what's important to think about is that these crises are kind of amplifying each other.

Right? One wouldn't be as disastrous for global ene