00:01I'm really curious to see what exactly we see happening, particularly watching the Strait
00:07of Hormuz very closely. We haven't seen ships begin to move yet toward it. If this is a
00:13valid agreement and they can get movement, I expect to see a large exodus out of the
00:18Strait of Hormuz as a lot of these ships which have been stuck inside the straits since the
00:22end of February will make a move toward the exit and really get away from being locked
00:28up. We're looking at a live map of the satellite map of the Strait of Hormuz. Now, as you say,
00:34there doesn't seem to be much movement at the moment, but is it going to take time for things
00:38to get going? And are we seeing, do you expect to see a full reopening of the strait? Because
00:44Iran has said it will be reopened, quote, with coordination with Iran's armed forces. What
00:49does that mean? I think no one's going to make a move for the strait yet until they get a
00:54clear
00:54indication of what this is. Based on those wordings, for example, it sounds like you're
01:00going to have to make clearance through the Iranians, which means potentially sailing between
01:05Qisham and Larik Island, their so-called toll booth for heading out. It doesn't make it sound
01:10like it's really clear to move yet. And obviously there's certain ships that are going to be more
01:15hesitant to move. There are five U.S. ships that are inside the Persian Gulf that have been in there
01:19since the beginning. I think other allied ships may be a little leery about coming out. I think it's really
01:24going to be a question of what the clearance of the strait of Hormuz is. Will the U.S. be
01:28able to
01:29send ships in there, particularly navy ships, to provide security? Will there be an investigation
01:33to determine there's no mines set in the center of the strait of Hormuz? There's still a lot of
01:38unknowns before we really start seeing ship movements. Yeah. So if things do start moving,
01:43you're saying their routes will be affected through the strait? I think we're definitely going to see a
01:49change. It's going to be a question of the Iranians giving permission to go, which is something that
01:54they have gotten de facto control. One of the things that we've seen is while the U.S. has been
01:58prosecuting missions in and around Iran, they've basically surrendered control of the strait of
02:03Hormuz to Iran. Iran's been controlling it. We've seen vessels moving through their checkpoint
02:09to come in. I think right now many ships are going to be very hesitant about heading to the strait
02:14until they have guarantees of safety. Remember, the war started with Iran attacking a series of ships
02:20on March 1st. We've had somewhere in the range of 30 ships attacked and about 11 merchant mariners
02:26killed, including one ship sunk. Is it possible to say, Sal, how many ships tankers will need to get
02:32through to make a real difference to oil prices and therefore petrol and diesel prices?
02:38I think the big issue here is going to be not so much the vessels coming out, but do vessels
02:43return
02:44back in? Because you're going to uncork the bottle, so to speak, and you're going to have a flood of
02:48vessels come out. But we've had five weeks' worth of drought coming out of the strait of Hormuz and
02:53the Persian Gulf. And while we'll get a lot of relief from the tankers and look-fight natural gas
02:58carriers and all the other loaded ships coming out, I don't expect to see the same level of traffic
03:04heading back in, especially if there's only a two-week window here. And even if there is,
03:09peace in the Middle East declared, I don't think many shipping companies are going to return back to
03:14this route at the level they were beforehand. So I think damage has been done to the global supply
03:20chain, at least in terms of the Persian Gulf. Some ships tankers have been making it through
03:24before today's announcements, haven't they? Was that through private negotiation with Iran?
03:31We've seen a mix of that. We've had a couple of ships that have made the run independently.
03:35So from several small corporations, Greek-owned vessels, we've seen the Omanis run several vessels
03:41through the southern end of the canal, actually through the strait. But we think most of them
03:45are being negotiated with Iran. We've seen Indian vessels, Pakistani, Chinese vessels. We even saw
03:52several Japanese vessels come out. So we think there's individual agreements being made. We don't know,
03:58for example, if there's a toll being paid, if there's some sort of monetary payment for this,
04:02or if there's just some sort of agreement to get them out. But we do know there's been a negotiation
04:07of some kind. These ships are transiting not through the normal strait area in the center of
04:12the Strait of Hormuz, but up in the territorial waters of Iran.
04:16And the closure of the straits, as we've been hearing, has been a powerful bargaining chip for Iran.
04:21It's going to be a focus of the next two weeks, isn't it?
04:24I think it's going to be a very big focus for the next two weeks. And one of the things
04:28I'm
04:28watching for is, I think, the one kind of advantage or the one kind of power the United
04:32States has, especially in the negotiation with Iran, is the ability to negotiate with Israel,
04:38to have Israel pull off. That's kind of the real big variable, I think, in this negotiation that we
04:42really haven't heard too much about. Will the Israelis agree to a ceasefire? Because that's really the
04:48one leverage the United States has over the Iranians to open it up. The Iranian control of the
04:53Strait of Hormuz has been almost absolute in some ways. It's definitely been a figure that I don't
04:58think the Americans counted on, at least to the level that we're seeing. And obviously it has huge
05:03implications, as you're seeing in Australia and around the world, with the shortage of oil and
05:07other commodities that have been really been slacked for the past five weeks.
05:12Salvatore McCoppiano, thank you so much.
05:15Thank you for having me.
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