By David Lawder and Doina Chiacu
WASHINGTON, March 19 (Reuters) – The U.S. may soon remove sanctions from Iranian oil that is stranded on tankers to help lift global supplies and reduce prices, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Thursday.
“In the coming days, we may unsanction the Iranian oil that’s on the water. It’s about 140 million barrels,” Bessent told Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria” program.
“So, depending on how you count it, that’s 10 days to two weeks of supply,” he added.
Bessent said the addition of sanctioned Iranian oil into global supplies would help keep oil prices down for the next 10 to 14 days. Oil prices have been above $100 per barrel for much of the past two weeks as Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz to shipping and has attacked tankers.
The Treasury recently took a similar step to allow the sale of sanctioned Russian oil stranded in tankers, which Treasury said added 130 million barrels to global supplies.
Bessent said the U.S. would take other actions to increase supply, including a unilateral release of stocks from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve above last week’s coordinated joint G7 release of 400 million barrels.
He said the Treasury would “absolutely not” try to intervene in oil futures markets, but would take actions to increase physical supplies to try to make up for the 10 million to 14 million barrel-per-day deficit caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
“So, to be clear, we’re not intervening in the financial markets. We are supplying the physical markets.”
Bessent said President Donald Trump would also talk to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi at the White House on Thursday about the Japanese navy taking part in securing safe passage for vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, as that is where Japan gets most of its oil.
“She’s very pro-U.S. I think we’re going to have a very good discussion today,” Bessent said, adding that Takaichi also may release more oil from Japan’s strategic petroleum reserve above its release in the joint action.
He said China had become an “unreliable” supplier of refined products, as it has stopped exporting jet fuel and other products to other countries in Asia.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and David Lawder; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Chizu Nomiyama )
About the Author
