Global oil prices rose for a fourth consecutive day this week as the standoff over the Strait of Hormuz dragged on, a conflict that has left Jordan absorbing higher energy costs at home while positioning itself as one of Iraq's main alternative routes for exporting crude.
اضافة اعلان
Brent crude climbed to $91.44 a barrel and U.S. West Texas Intermediate to $85.45 by midweek, both benchmarks extending gains after touching three-week highs, according to Reuters, as investors weighed conflicting statements from Washington and Tehran over whether the strait remains open to shipping.
The uncertainty follows the lapse of a short-term ceasefire between the United States and Iran on Monday. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that no talks were underway with Tehran while insisting the strait was open, a claim Iran disputes. A senior Iranian official told Reuters that the country was shifting to a "fully offensive" military posture given the diplomatic stalemate.
The standoff is the latest turn in a conflict that has run since late February, when the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran, followed by a series of ceasefires and agreements that have repeatedly broken down.
To keep oil flowing despite the closure, Iraq's cabinet approved a three-month export mechanism on Tuesday, allowing crude shipments through specialized international and local firms via multiple outlets, with contracts set to begin September 1.Iraq has increasingly turned to routes that bypass the Gulf entirely, including trucking oil overland to Jordan's port of Aqaba and Syria's Baniyas, alongside expanded pipeline capacity through Turkey.
Jordan's Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources said in March that Iraqi goods moving through Aqaba receive a 75 percent discount on port handling fees, and that Jordan buys Iraqi Kirkuk crude at a discount to the monthly average Brent price, with the tanker fleet split evenly between Jordanian and Iraqi operators.
The broader disruption has also driven up costs inside Jordan's own energy sector. Energy Minister Saleh al-Kharabsheh said in March that the Kingdom's pivot toward liquefied natural gas, made necessary after regional supply routes were disrupted, had pushed procurement costs from around $7 per million British thermal units to roughly $28, a fourfold increase costing the treasury an estimated 2.5 million to 3 million dinars a day to hold tariffs steady.
Al-Kharabsheh said Jordan holds enough fuel reserves to sustain electricity generation for about a month in the event of a total supply disruption, alongside a broader strategic stockpile of refined products covering 30 to 60 days depending on the product, and ruled out power rationing.
Jordan is also working to reduce its longer-term exposure to these swings. The Ministry has said the state-run National Petroleum Company is drilling 80 new wells at the Risha gas field, aiming to lift output above 400 million cubic feet a day by 2029, enough to cover the Kingdom's current daily consumption of around 340 million cubic feet, and is preparing to tender a pipeline linking Risha to industrial hubs.
On the global side, analysts say the picture remains fluid. June Goh, senior oil market analyst at Sparta Commodities, said shipping risks are rising again as attacks continue near both Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb strait, though she noted Gulf producers are increasingly finding workarounds that could ease pressure on shut-in production. U.S. crude and distillate inventories fell last week while gasoline stocks rose, according to data from the American Petroleum Institute cited by Reuters, with official U.S. government figures due later Wednesday.
For Jordan, which imports nearly all of its fuel, the coming weeks will test both sides of that equation: whether Iraq's new export mechanism and Jordan's own port and pipeline capacity can absorb more of the traffic diverted from Hormuz, and whether global price swings force another round of adjustments when the Fuel Pricing Committee meets to set next month's rates.
