The most catastrophic energy crisis in history just sent crude oil futures above $105 as European Brent hits $110.
Big Bull Market Asserting Itself…Again
April 28 (King World News) – The Kobeissi Letter: BREAKING: US oil prices extend gains to $105/barrel as President Trump prepares to extend the US “blockade” of the Strait of Hormuz for months.
KING WORLD NEWS NOTE: Crude Oil Trading Up Another 5% Today, With Futures Surging Above $105
IEA CHIEF: THIS IS “THE BIGGEST ENERGY SECURITY THREAT IN HISTORY”
Gerald Celente: PUBLISHER’S NOTE: By the hard facts and indisputable data, the war that the United States and Israel have launched against Iran has inflicted severe economic damage across the globe. These are just a few of the headlines making the news:
“As of today, we have lost 13 million barrels per day of oil and there are major disruptions in vital commodities,” Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said in a 23 April CNBC interview. “We are facing the biggest energy security threat in history.”
Since early in the war, Birol has urged nations to increase their use of renewable energy sources.
“I expect, first of all, nuclear power will get a boost,” he added. “Renewables will grow very strongly – solar, wind, and others. I expect electric cars will benefit from this. In some countries, I expect coal may also go back up, especially in some big countries in Asia.”
The Strait of Hormuz’s closure will slow global economic growth, fire up inflation, and could lead to energy rationing in some areas, Birol warned.
“Europe gets about 75 percent of its jet fuel from refineries in the Middle East and this is basically now zero,” he noted. “Europe is now trying to get it from the U.S. and Nigeria. If we are not able to get [additional imports in Europe], we…may need to take some measures in Europe to reduce air travel.”
The 400-million-barrel withdrawal from the 32 IEA member nations’ strategic oil reserves, authorized in March, “is only helping to reduce the pain,” Birol said. “It will not be a cure. The cure is opening the Strait of Hormuz.”
TREND FORECAST:
Clean energy investments will be an OnTrendpreneuropportunity of the century.
The Iran War’s energy shock will propel households and many national governments to accelerate their installations of clean and alternative energy sources.
Given the energy transition’s history, it is likely that the momentum spurred by the war will not sustain long enough to quickly dethrone fossil fuels, but it will ignite the clean energy invention and production trends.
The war has advanced the transition to non-fossil fuels more than any incentive program ever could…
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WAR’S FINANCIAL SHOCK WORKS DEEPER INTO THE WORLD ECONOMY
Service businesses slump and factories’ costs rise as the Iran War’s economic damage becomes more obvious around the world, various surveys are finding.
“The knock-on effects of the [war] are starting to push up inflation while raising concerns about food supplies and prompting downgrades to economic growth forecasts,” Reuters reported.
The 21 countries sharing the euro currency are faring among the worst, according to S&P Global’s purchasing managers index (PMI) surveys. Business activity across the region has slipped from 50.7 in March to 48.6 last month, the poll showed.
It was the first time in 16 months that the gauge slipped below 50, the level separating economic growth from contraction. In a Reuters survey, economists expected activity to remain barely in positive territory.
The services sector’s measure dropped from 50.7 to 47.4, below the 49.8 economists had projected in the Reuters poll and fell at a rate not seen since the COVID War’s lockdowns began in early 2021, Chris Williamson, S&P’s chief business economist, wrote in a note.
The subindex gauging factory input costs jumped to 76.9 last month from 68.9 in March.
The war has caused “the biggest surge in cost pressures that we have recorded since 2000” aside from the COVID War’s supply disruption, S&P said in a statement.
“Increasingly widespread supply shortages threaten to dampen growth further while adding more upward pressure to prices in the coming weeks,” Williamson added.
The surveys indicate “clearly” that Europe is in “stagflation territory,” with rising prices and scant, if any, economic growth, Tomasz Wieladek, a T.Rowe Price economist wrote in a note.
The plunge in business activity “will raise concerns” that the Eurozone “is perhaps even sliding into a recession,” he warned.
In the U.S., manufacturing’s PMI shot to 54.0, its highest in 47 months. Economists had forecast 52.5. The subindex of new factory orders rose from 52.3 in March to 54.8 in April. The U.S. services sector returned to positive territory last month, reaching 51.3 after ending March at 49.8.
However, the positive numbers are not necessarily harbingers of good news.
U.S. business activity “bore many hallmarks of panic buying in the face of war-induced supply shortages and price pressures,” Reuters said. Delivery times and the prices businesses charged their customers were their highest since the supply disruptions in the wake of the COVID War.
TREND FORECAST:
The spurt of good numbers in the U.S. mirrors those that preceded Donald Trump’s tariff announcement in April 2025.
Back then, businesses were ordering more ahead of what they expected to be an economic slump. They repeated that tactic as the new Iran War began.
In the U.S., economic activity will remain slow over the summer and into the fall, if not beyond. In Europe, every day the war continues pushes the region one step closer to a recession.
EUROPEAN UNION ESTABLISHES JET FUEL “OBSERVATORY”
Transport ministers of the European Union’s (EU’s) member nations have set up a “jet fuel observatory” that will monitor amounts of the fuel on hand and work to prevent nations from hoarding the fuel at each other’s expense.
The ministers also announced that the U.S. will provide jet fuel to the continent.
Even so, the EU remains “very worried” about possible jet fuel shortages, especially as the crucial summer tourist season approaches.
However, Europe’s fuel crisis will remain long beyond that, EU energy commission Dan Jorgenson told reporters last week. Europe will undergo “very difficult months, or possibly even years” before the region sees lower energy costs, he warned.
Even if Europe’s nations can secure adequate energy supplies, prices will remain volatile, he added.
“Even in a best-case scenario, it’s still bad,” Jorgenson said, citing the months or years needed to repair the damage Iranian missile attacks have done to Gulf states’ oil and gas production facilities.
The Iran War is costing EU nations €500 million, or about $600 million, every day in higher energy expenses, Jorgenson said.
Airlines have warned that the fuel shortage could lead to canceled flights. However, the EU brushed off the claim, saying any canceled flights would have more to do with airlines’ profit targets than actual fuel shortfalls.
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