00:00You've written in your most recent article that if the goal of these attacks, and we're talking about the Iranian
00:07attacks here,
00:08if the goal of these attacks was to move the GCC states to push the U.S. and Israel to
00:12conclude their attacks on Iran,
00:14the opposite has occurred. Unpack that for us, please.
00:20Thank you, Jamana. Yeah, I think what we're seeing now is a more resolute and unified Gulf stance, GCC stance,
00:27similar to what we saw last June, but this is much more serious.
00:32It's much more severe because so immediately after the Israeli and U.S. attacks on Iran,
00:37Iran decided to retaliate on all six of the GCC states and to target civilian infrastructure, airports, ports, data center,
00:46apartment buildings, and now diplomatic facilities, U.S. embassies.
00:53So it is ratcheted up in terms of the escalation cycle very, very quickly,
00:58and this has created a sense, I think, of solidarity and also that this just can't continue,
01:03that the kind of sense of being under attack, whether it's by drones or missiles, is just not tolerable.
01:14Do you think there's a possibility that the Gulf countries create a coalition to actually get involved in the war
01:21militarily?
01:23So we're seeing the beginnings of defensive retaliation.
01:27We had Qatar shoot down two Iranian military aircraft just yesterday.
01:33The next step would be some sort of offensive retaliation.
01:39I don't think that we're going to see a very cohesive military response from the GCC.
01:45We have the precedent, of course, of the peninsula shield, but this would require something much more.
01:52I think if there is, there will be more defensive activity, certainly more interventions and interceptions of aircraft
01:58and using interceptors, of course, to continue stopping the missiles and projectiles.
02:03But we could see an escalation, especially, I think, in energy infrastructure.
02:09So as Iran targets Tanura or Ras Lafan, as it has in Qatar, that would be, I think,
02:18the most likely response if we were to see GCC states individually go on an offensive measure.
02:26Yeah, and we've been tracking the price action in energy markets.
02:31You would have seen our prior segments, and obviously the price action yesterday in that gas was pretty remarkable.
02:37But also there's something else to consider here, which is the fact that the U.S. is actually a net
02:41exporter of both oil and gas.
02:44Does that not put the U.S. in a more insulated position as to what happens on these broader global
02:50energy markets?
02:52I think the Trump administration certainly feels that it is insulated because of its domestic oil and gas production.
02:59That's not really how markets work, of course.
03:01So we could continue to see price increases in oil and certainly in gas markets.
03:07I think gas is more serious.
03:09That's where we've seen the largest sort of percentage increase.
03:12And the market is just very different.
03:14We have lots of spare capacity in a wider geography for oil than we do for LNG.
03:20And it's just going to be much harder to make up what is currently blocked with the shutdown of Ras
03:28Lafana and Qatar and Qatar Energy's decision.
03:32Yeah, I appreciate maybe this is a simplistic question, but is it fair to say for as long as this
03:37war goes on,
03:38we can continue to expect prices to stay supported and, if anything, potentially even squeeze higher?
03:45Yeah, I think there will be, you know, a gradual increase as long as the Strait of Hormuz is it's
03:51not fully blocked,
03:52but there's not, you know, full traffic moving and able to move freely.
03:55We've got now hits on Saudi refining facilities and we've got the shutdown of a major LNG global facility.
04:03So that is just going to be, you know, part of the pricing considerations for both of these products.
04:11And if we see even, you know, prolonged difficulty in exits.
04:15So, you know, you can make up some of the crude in the pipelines, in the east-west pipeline through
04:20Saudi Arabia
04:21and through the pipeline in the UAE to Fujaira.
04:23We have nothing else like that for LNG.
04:26There is no replacement.
04:27So, you know, I would expect as, you know, this will be seasonal too, right?
04:32So as if this were to continue for months and we get into certainly the autumn where we see more
04:38European demand increasing
04:40and a drawdown of storage of gas in Europe, we could expect gas prices to be very, very high.
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