Name: Saudi Pipeline Could Help Trump Buy Time and Try to End War, Opinion's Blas Says
Uploaded: 2026-03-12T21:38:04.000Z
Duration: 4 min 7 s
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Joining us now in the viability of these workarounds is Javier Bloss, Bloomberg opinion columnist covering energy and commodities.

He's also the author of the World for Sale, Money, Power and the Traders who Barter the Earth's Resources.

Javier, what's your take on Ed's warning that, you know, the Houthis have yet to activate and that could hit those other 7 million barrels coming out the other side of the peninsula?

If the Houthis were to disrupt shipping, shipping for oil through the Red Sea into the high seas, that will be a big problem because that is one thing that we are going to rely in the next few days to try to bottleneck a bit, the street of Hormuz.

These two pipelines do not resolve not even half of the problem.

certainly by time for the administration to try to end the war, to try to slow down the increase in prices.

But I'm talking about the using these pipelines to slow down the price increase, not to stop and certainly not to reverse those price increases.

Javier, what about what the finance ministers, the G7 are discussing right now?

The finance minister of Japan saying G7 agreed to respond, including release of oil reserves.

The French finance minister saying we are ready to take action to stabilize markets.

Just how much can they do, Javier, to stabilize markets?

The key question is going to be the big number, how much the G7 countries of the International Energy Agency countries are willing to release and whether they are willing to release those barrels.

But that will be also a significant element in buying time for the administration to end the war.

But at the end of the day, we have lost around 20 million barrels a day of flow through the Strait of Hormuz.

And nothing else can replace the keeping that straight or reopening that straight.

Everything else is just patching the system, trying to slow down the train, but

Javier, how much damage can be done to energy infrastructure in the Middle East?

I mean, clearly in Iran you'll see mass destruction as the US And Israel continue their bombing campaigns.

But will the Iranians, for example, materially damage Saudi Arabia's energy infrastructure?

We have have swarm of drones hitting our head in, sorry, not hitting, but

And certainly those drones have been neutralized.

But there is a chance that one single drone goes through.

We are talking about flammable products, oil and gas.

It doesn't take a lot to create an explosion and to, to lose that significant chunk of infrastructure.

And that is a key race for the strategy of President Trump.

He seems to be saying, look, yes, high oil prices for a while, maybe a day, maybe a few days, maybe a few weeks, but

after this is over, then the price goes down and goes down very, very quickly and sharply.

That was only if the infrastructure emerged from the war on a scratch.

And Iran, I think, is trying to really scratch the infrastructure and that will be really a stop the White House strategy completely.

So what does that mean then, Javier, if we do get damage of Iran's oil infrastructure, and

yes, you do have, as you lay out so wisely in your column, the other means of transporting oil through the east west pipeline.

What does this look like long term if there is destruction of energy infrastructure?

As I said, we have losses already, 20 million barrels a day of oil supply or oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz.

If we start losing actual production capacity for good, not just because it has been shut down, because they're running out of a storage, out of tanking capacity, but

because it has been damaged while then prices need to go a lot higher than they have gone now.

I don't really want to put a number, but, but

it is a lot higher than where we are today.