President Trump claimed Sunday that Iran’s oil infrastructure could explode in about three days because of mechanical issues exacerbated by the US blockade on its vessels.
“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 told Fox News’ “The Sunday Briefing.”
“It’s something that happens where it just explodes. And they say they only have about three days left before that happens. And when it explodes, you can never, regardless, you can never rebuild it the way it was.”
Experts have warned that Iran could be forced to shut down its oil fields as early as April 29 because of the US naval blockade, risking long-term damage to its crude production.
That’s because Tehran is effectively running out of storage space after it had been forced to divert its oil to onshore tanks, which can only hold so much, since its exports have been halted.
Both the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute and Energy Aspects, a UK-based fuel analyst firm, estimated that Iran’s storage space will be up in the coming week.
“Once the tanks are filled, Iran would have to shut down its oil fields, which risks long-term damage to the fields,” said Annika Ganzeveld, the Middle East portfolio manager for the AEI’s Critical Threats Project, previously to The Post.
Sudden and long-term halts at oil-production plants risk permanent damage to a fuel reservoir and make it increasingly difficult to restart operations and reach the same level of output as before.
Such a situation would serve as a major blow to Tehran’s already weakened economy.
But it also would likely lead to soaring fuel prices to a global market already reeling from a missing 12 million barrels a day due to the war.
Iran may attempt to lower production even more for the remainder of the month or deploy oil tankers along its ports as temporary storage space to delay the production cuts, analysts noted.
It would be a short term solution for a country that is currently producing about 2 million barrels per day.
FGE NextantECA, an energy and chemicals advisory company, estimates that Iran has about 122 million barrels of storage space, giving Tehran less than seven weeks before it has to shut down production.
