President Donald Trump claimed that the US naval blockade of Iranian ports has prevented Iran from successfully distributing its oil and can consequence in explosions inside three days due to mechanical and geological points.
“When you have, you know, lines of vast amounts of oil pouring through your system, if for any reason that line is closed because you can’t continue to put it into containers or ships — which has happened to them; they have no ships because of the blockade — what happens is that line explodes from within, both mechanically and in the earth,” Trump stated in a cellphone interview on Fox News’ “The Sunday Briefing.”
“It’s something that happens where it just explodes,” Trump added. “And they say they only have about three days left before that happens. And when it explodes, you can never … rebuild it the way it was.”
Experts informed NCS that Trump is vastly overstating what occurs when an oil-producing state can not export. Iran’s oil services are unlikely to blow up, since many have been shut down, the specialists defined.
“When tankers are no longer available to load oil production, the onshore inventories begin to fill up. As onshore facilities fill up, one begins to cut production. That has already happened in Iraq, Kuwait and the UAE. There have been no explosions in this regard, as yet,” Andy Lipow, of Lipow Oil Associates, informed NCS over electronic mail.
But shutting wells might consequence in decreased oil manufacturing in the longer term as soon as services are reopened, he famous.
Ultimately, “the oil will not explode,” Lipow stated.