NEW YORK, March 25. /TASS/. The consequences of the energy crisis triggered by the US-Israeli military operation against Iran threaten to engulf the US and other regions soon, according to a forecast published by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
Unless peace talks pan out fast, record high prices for specific grades of Middle Eastern crude cargoes will soon cascade to the US and elsewhere, the article notes.
"The disruption [of fuel supplies] is so massive, we will turn into full panic mode if this situation is not resolved rather quickly," said Helge Andre Martinsen, an energy analyst at Norwegian investment bank DNB Carnegie.
As the newspaper clarifies, the situation can be resolved if full-fledged oil transportation through the Strait of Hormuz is restored.
Even then, for prices to fall toward prewar levels, traders want to see Persian Gulf producers reverse output cuts from the early days of the war, the publication says.
"It would also require long-term sanctions relief on Iran and Russia. The US has relaxed sanctions on both to soothe markets but only for a month," Martinsen said as quoted by the WSJ.
For now, the US has only made a short-term, selective easing of its restrictions on Russian and Iranian oil.
Gasoline prices in the United States have already soared to their highest levels since 2022. However, American experts admit that even if the Iranian conflict ends relatively quickly, fuel prices in the US will decline only slowly.
The US and Israel launched an operation against Iran on February 28. Major Iranian cities, including Tehran, were hit. The White House justified the attack by citing alleged missile and nuclear threats from Iran. The US administration openly called on the Iranian population to rise up against their own government and seize power. The strikes killed Iran's former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several other key figures in the Islamic Republic's leadership. Iran launched retaliatory operations against Israel and US targets in Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia.