Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pushed Iranian crude oil as the fastest available fix for the global supply shortfall Thursday, revealing the administration is considering temporarily lifting sanctions on approximately 140 million barrels of Iranian crude stranded on tankers. Bessent argued the speed and scale of the available Iranian crude supply makes it the most practical near-term solution to oil prices above $100 per barrel caused by Iran’s Hormuz blockade.
Speed has been of the essence in the administration’s response to the Hormuz blockade, which has been removing between 10 and 14 million barrels of daily supply from global markets for close to two weeks. The Iranian crude on tankers, already at sea and awaiting buyers, represents one of the fastest available supply responses because it requires no new production — only a policy decision to lift the existing sanctions.
Bessent confirmed the Iranian crude originally heading toward Chinese ports as the fast-fix supply source. A targeted temporary waiver could redirect this oil to global buyers within days, he estimated, providing roughly two weeks of price support while the US campaign to resolve the Hormuz crisis develops.
The Treasury has previously deployed fast fixes of this kind, including a waiver for Russian oil that quickly added approximately 130 million barrels to world supply. An additional unilateral US Strategic Petroleum Reserve release beyond the G7’s 400 million barrel joint commitment is also being prepared, while the administration has maintained its firm opposition to financial market intervention.
Experts evaluated the speed argument carefully. While acknowledging that Iranian crude on tankers is indeed among the fastest available supply fixes, compliance professionals and national security analysts warned that the speed of the fix should not override careful consideration of its strategic consequences. They argued that the revenues from Iranian oil sales would quickly reach the Tehran regime, where they could just as rapidly be deployed to fund military activities and proxy support, making the fast fix potentially faster at creating new problems than solving the existing one.