Oil Falls in Choppy Trade Ahead of Trump Speech on Iran War

Oil fell in a volatile session, with traders focused on whether US President Donald Trump will soon declare an end to the war in Iran.

West Texas Intermediate futures crude slid below $100 a barrel, at one point slumping more than 4.8%, before recovering some of that loss to trade near $99. Tom Kloza, Chief Energy Advisor for Gulf Oil joins Balance of Power to discuss how this conflict will effect oil prices.  US President Donald Trump said he’ll only consider a halt to attacks on Iran when the Strait of Hormuz is reopened, sowing further confusion about how long he’s prepared to continue the war.

Iran’s “New Regime President” has asked the US for a ceasefire, Trump said in a social-media post on Wednesday, possibly referring to comments Masoud Pezeshkian made Tuesday that the Islamic Republic has “the necessary will” to end this war — with certain guarantees.

“We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear,” Trump said. “Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion.”

Trump’s comments came a day after he suggested he’s keen to exit the conflict sooner rather than later — regardless of a ceasefire with Iran or a deal to open Hormuz, a vital shipping lane for global energy supplies. “We’ll leave because there’s no reason for us to do this,” he told reporters in the White House. The US leader has vacillated throughout the month-long conflict between threatening a military escalation and saying a deal is imminent. Also on Wednesday, Reuters reported him as saying the US will be out of Iran “pretty quickly.”

Iran ensured Hormuz was closed off to most ships not long after the US and Israel began airstrikes on Feb. 28, and hasn’t offered any terms or timeline for a reopening. The future of the strait will be decided by Iran and Oman, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Wednesday, according to the state-run Press TV.

Araghchi said previously his country has been in direct contact with US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, but told Al Jazeera that “does not mean that we are in negotiations.”

Hormuz won’t be opened based on the “absurd displays of the American president,” state-run IRIB added, citing a statement by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Meanwhile, Iran fired missiles across the Middle East and Israel and the US kept up their bombardment of the Islamic Republic for a fifth week.

Israel, Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates all reported attacks overnight and into Wednesday, while QatarEnergy said a fuel oil tanker was struck in Qatari waters. That incident highlighted the ongoing threat to regional shipping and the month-long effective closure of Hormuz, which has choked off key commodities including fertilizer as well as oil and gas. Stocks and bonds surged earlier as investors took Trump’s Tuesday comments as a sign the crisis could be nearing an end. Oil prices briefly fell below $100 a barrel for the first time in more than a week, though later pared declines and remain around 40% higher than before the war began.

Trump had suggested the US has accomplished military goals such as preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon. “We have had a regime change now,” he added, after US and Israeli strikes killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other senior figures. Khamenei was later replaced by his son, Mojtaba.

The war could be over in two or three weeks, Trump said, although he often sets short-term deadlines that are later ignored or replaced. On Monday, he threatened to destroy Iranian energy assets, as well as desalination plants, if a deal isn’t reached to open the Strait of Hormuz.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. head Jamie Dimon said the US needs to permanently remove any threat from Iran. “It’s much more important that this be successfully completed, than what the market does,” he told Fox & Friends on Tuesday. Anything less will likely leave the world economy vulnerable to shocks, he said.

US military assets, including ground troops, continue to be amassed in the region. A third US aircraft carrier strike group left Virginia for the Middle East on Tuesday, according to a US official familiar with the matter.

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