President Donald Trump claimed that the US naval blockade of Iranian ports has prevented Iran from effectively distributing its oil and will result in explosions within three days because of mechanical and geological issues.
“When you have, you know, lines of vast amounts of oil pouring through your system, if for any reason that line is closed because you can’t continue to put it into containers or ships — which has happened to them; they have no ships because of the blockade — what happens is that line explodes from within, both mechanically and in the earth,” Trump said in a phone interview on Fox News’ “The Sunday Briefing.”
“It’s something that happens where it just explodes,” Trump added. “And they say they only have about three days left before that happens. And when it explodes, you can never … rebuild it the way it was.”
Experts told CNN that Trump is vastly overstating what happens when an oil-producing state can no longer export. Iran’s oil facilities are unlikely to explode, since many have been shut down, the experts explained.
“When tankers are no longer available to load oil production, the onshore inventories begin to fill up. As onshore facilities fill up, one begins to cut production. That has already happened in Iraq, Kuwait and the UAE. There have been no explosions in this regard, as yet,” Andy Lipow, of Lipow Oil Associates, told CNN over email.
But shutting wells could result in decreased oil production in the future once facilities are reopened, he noted.