By Lim Tean
How many times have you read that 20% of the global oil supply passes through the Strait of Hormuz per day. I always tell people that figure grossly underestimates the importance of the Strait because when viewed from the lens of the global trade of oil, the figure is actually around 38% ! Yup, nearly 40% of the global trade of oil has to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran today controls more of the World’s oil than America, Russia and Saudi Arabia, the biggest producers.
Americans and Israelis have made Iran into a global superpower in 5 weeks! Why does Iran need nuclear weapons when it has the Strait of Hormuz? Hormuz is the best weapon of mass destruction.
And when you combine it with the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea, which is effectively under the control of the Houthis, Iran’s proxy in Yemen, and through which another 12% of the global supply of oil has to pass through, you realise that Iran actually controls more than 50% of the global trade of oil. Saudi Arabia is now frantically diverting its oil through pipelines to its great oil port at Yanbu in the Red Sea, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, but that oil still has to go through the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait to get to the Indian sub-continent and Asia.
Further, with the new toll system it will put in place for the Strait of Hormuz, where a Very Large Crude Carrier ( VLCC ) carrying 2 million barrels of oil has to pay a fee of US$2 million equivalent in Yuan or crypto, Iran stands to earn between US$80-90 billion a year just from the tolls. This is a staggering amount when you compare it to US$5-10 billion a year which Egypt earns from fees from vessels using the Suez Canal. Of course the traffic volume through the Strait of Hormuz is much heavier than the Suez Canal. Effectively, the Iranians will be earning a fee of US$1 per barrel of oil which passes through the Strait.
That is why my friends, out of this war will emerge a new architecture in the Middle East where the 2 big powers will be Iran and Turkey. Israel will be ground into the dust and cease to exist in the future. It doesn’t even have to be attacked militarily. The hollowing out of the Jewish population will occur. Israel will be depopulated. And for the humiliation that it has suffered because of Israel, who pushed it into a totally unnecessary and disastrous war, America will turn viciously against the Jewish state. Israel without American military and economic support is nothing!
As for the Gulf States, those that stood on the side of America and Israel such as UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain will cease to exist and be wiped off the map. The clever ones such as Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia who now call Iran a “Brotherly Nation” will survive.
