As Trump’s Iran war drags on, we’re facing the next oil crunch

September 9, 2026 — 10:11am

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Oil prices are approaching $US100 a barrel as hostilities in the Middle East have flared again, threatening a new burst of global energy-related inflation and economic pain.

Despite the aggressive (and horrendously expensive) US naval and military presence in and around the Persian Gulf, oil cargoes transiting the Strait of Hormuz are still at only about a third of their pre-war levels of 20 million barrels a day.

The naval blockade and America’s tightening of sanctions on Iran may be strangling Iran’s economy, but they haven’t been able to ensure safe passage for the large tankers that would allow for a return to pre-war oil flows from the Middle East.

While Donald Trump keeps asserting that the war (which he has claimed to have won at least half a dozen times) is nearing its end, Iran – which says it is close to concluding an agreement with Oman over the management of the strait once the war does end – shows no signs of surrendering.

The Islamic republic is still firing missiles at US ships and tankers even as the US is attacking Iranian tankers and effectively shutting down Iran’s oil exports.

Iran’s allies, the Houthis, are attacking Saudi Arabia’s oil refineries and threatening the pipelines that carry about 5 million barrels of all a day to a terminal on the Red Sea’s coast, which has enabled the Saudis to circumvent the strait for at least some of their oil shipments.

After a relatively quiet August, which saw the oil price drop from above $US100 a barrel in late July to below $US90 a barrel, prices are moving up again and prolonging the impact the war is having on the global energy markets and economy.

For much of the period after the US and Israel........

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