Trump on Iranian oil: stay "and keep the oil," and tells Kyiv to stop strikes on refineries

In our 6:30 edition we reported the postponement, without a new date, of the summit between Iran and the Gulf countries that Oman had convened in Salalah for today. The postponement remains the fact, confirmed during the day: the sultanate announced on September 14 the delay of the meeting on the future and security of the Strait of Hormuz, and Iranian officials confirmed it. But the day’s center of gravity shifted to Washington, and concerns what is happening with crude oil.

US President Donald Trump said the United States could remain in Iran and “keep the oil” (transl. from English), arguing that gasoline prices will fall once the war is over. This is a formulation that shifts the stated objective of the military operation from the ground of security to that of resources, and one the president made while the market was moving in the opposite direction.

The second message: stop the attacks on Russian refineries

At the same occasion Trump asked Ukraine to stop striking Russian refineries, attributing the worldwide rise in diesel prices to Kyiv’s actions and not to the war with Iran. Over the weekend Ukraine struck two more Russian refineries.

The scale helps explain why diesel has become the sensitive point: according to the International Energy Agency, in February refineries in the Gulf and in Russia supplied nearly half of the world’s seaborne diesel. The two areas accounting for that share are both caught up in conflict, but for different reasons documented in different ways: Russian refineries are reported to have been hit by Ukrainian raids, while for the Gulf the available material confirms the blockage of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and the closure of the Saudi east-west pipeline following drone attacks, not attacks on refineries. The American request to Kyiv addresses the only one of the two fronts on which Washington is asking for a change in behavior, and it does not contain a position on the legitimacy of the targets.

Trump attributes the global rise in diesel prices to Ukrainian attacks, not to the war with Iran.

The channel that remains, and the one that has closed

The market data came in on Monday morning. Brent rose 2.51% to $107.27 a barrel at the start of European trading, after Saudi Arabia closed the main east-west pipeline to the Red Sea on Friday following drone attacks. That pipeline was the alternative outlet: it allowed the kingdom to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, which is blocked because of the war with Iran. With the pipeline shut, the only route left is the one through which about 20% of the world’s oil passes, and which today cannot be used under ordinary conditions. During the day Brent remained above $100, with quotes around 107.5.

Analysts cited in market data see both traffic through the Strait and through Bab el-Mandeb as at risk, and point to fears of elevated prices for an extended period.

The naval blockade in figures

On the military front, the US Central Command updated the count of ships affected by the blockade against Iran: 101 merchant vessels diverted as of September 13, according to what was reported on September 14 at 03:19 by the Egyptian newspaper Al-Dostor based on a Centcom message. The command indicated the presence of the destroyer USS John Paul Jones in the related naval operations.

In the same quadrant an episode occurred that we report with an explicit caveat. According to Iranian state media, cited on September 14 by Just Security, on September 13 an Iranian cargo ship was hit off the island of Qeshm, in the Strait of Hormuz: one person killed and four wounded, with the governor of Qeshm attributing the attack to a “terrorist enemy” (transl. from English) without naming those responsible. The report currently comes from a single source (Iranian state media); no independent confirmation is available, and under our editorial standards a state source counts as an attribution, not as verification.

What we don’t know

We do not know whether the possibility of a lasting American presence in Iran corresponds to actual planning or remains a political statement: no formal act appears in the available material. We do not know when the Saudi pipeline will return to service, nor what damage it sustained. Trump also downplayed a report according to which Iran allegedly obtained satellite images of a base in Jordan from Chinese entities before the July attack in which three US service members were killed: the content of that report, and who produced it, does not appear in the material available to us.