Donald Trump apparently doesn’t want to be put under pressure by high gasoline prices.Image: keystone
Warning from the oil industry: The reserves will soon be used up and a new phase in the energy crisis will begin.
May 30, 2026, 7:32 p.mMay 30, 2026, 7:32 p.m
A deal with Iran has been “largely negotiated,” or so Donald Trump recently said. The US President said it something like this four weeks ago. On April 20, Trump posted on Truth Social that he would have the deal “relatively soon.”
Meanwhile, the world waits and the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Before the war, about 20 percent of the world’s oil supply went through there – since the blockage, next to nothing. The anxious question is what the consequences will be. Even if Trump’s deal should actually come “relatively soon”, opinions here vary widely. Very far.
Where is the problem?
On the one hand, there are the financial markets with their unshakable confidence. They are currently trading a barrel of oil at just over $90. This is more than before the lockdown. But it is less than in the last energy crisis, when Russia invaded Ukraine. It is far less than oil experts had expected when they imagined such a blockage in their “nightmare scenario”.
In other words, the markets shrug their shoulders indifferently. On the other side are representatives of the energy industry who seem to be tearing their hair out in despair over so much indifference.
Paul Sankey, a veteran energy experttells the Bloomberg news agency with self-irony that he and his colleagues initially shouted their dark predictions loudly to the world. When the stock market remained indifferent and instead rose to new record highs, the energy experts were almost silent. “But actually things are going almost exactly as we predicted have.»
According to Sankey, the world is currently using up its oil reserves without a care in the world. At a certain point, which is not known exactly, these reserves are too deep and the energy system no longer functions. Sankey warns: “We will reach this point and then prices will go crazy.”
race against time
Similar, if less floral, it says the head of Chevron, one of the world’s largest oil companies. The price of oil has not yet risen as much as expected. But the world owes this primarily to its oil reserves for emergencies. These supplies would now run out. According to the Financial Times, he expects a jump in June and July at the latest Increase in oil prices.
For the experts at the US think tank Brookings, things could become critical towards the end of June. If the barrier has not been lifted by then, it will be foreseeable that the world will have to use up its oil reserves and the deal between Trump and Iran will come about too late. Then strong price jumps are possible, up to 150 dollars.
So it’s a race against time – but one that doesn’t end immediately, even with a deal. Iran can open the Strait of Hormuz, but the previous normality will take some time to return. The head of Adnoc, the state-owned company in the United Arab Emirates, warns about this. It will take at least until the beginning of 2027 before as much oil flows through the strait as before.
Warning of global motor oil shortage
According to Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), it is already too late. For him, the question is apparently no longer whether the world is losing the race against time. It is already “in the middle of the biggest energy supply crisis it has ever faced”.
So while the world waits for the deal between Trump and Iran, the small and large consequences of the ban are piling up around the world. As before in the Corona crisis and after Russia’s attack on Ukraine, they don’t necessarily show up where you would have expected them.
The US magazine “Fortune” writes: The oil crisis is not hitting Americans first at the gas pump, but under the hood. The US is running out of motor oil. The relevant association warns of “imminent shortages and a global crisis Motor oil supply crisis».
Americans are also dissatisfied with their gasoline prices. On their Memorial Day, a day of remembrance for fallen soldiers, 16 states had record high priceseven higher than during the last energy crisis in 2022.
In Malaysia, the shelves in supermarkets where you would normally find milk bottles are suddenly half empty. A dairy product manufacturer has run out of plastic bottles, according to a local newspaper reported. The explanation can be found in the Strait of Hormuz. The lockdown has disrupted petrochemical supply chains.
According to the study, Switzerland is well protected
In Japan, the snack manufacturer Calbee has run out of dyes. The packs of his chips and crackers no longer appear in the usual bright colors – but only in Black-and-white. It’s like Doubt chips no longer come in the usual orange.
And in India, diet colas are becoming scarce. These are only sold there in cans, which are also in short supply: in normal times, a significant part of the global supply of aluminum goes through the Strait of Hormuz. You take it with humor. Enjoy the remaining cans at Diet Coke parties celebrated.
The consequences will be very different around the world, as the OECD country association did in an analysis holds on. How big the shock will be in a country depends primarily on one question: How much of their income do households have to spend on energy? At 5.5 percent, Switzerland has one of the lowest shares of all OECD countries. In addition, their oil reserves are well above average. Switzerland is therefore one of the best protected countries.