President Donald Trump’s purpose of bringing Iran to its knees threatens to exact a heavy toll on American drivers this summer, fuel analysts notify.
Ahead of a contentious 2020 presidential election, the pain at the examine is starting to spread beyond blue states, according to Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at Oil Price Info Service.
“There’s probably a half dozen states that the president needs to carry in the next election which are booming to go above $3 a gallon in this driving season,” he told CNBC’s “Closing Bell” on Monday.
Kloza rumoured the timing of the Iran policy shift was “very inelegant to say the least.” Gas prices are already lofty because of refinery outages, and refineries wish soon hike crude oil processing by 1 million-1.5 million barrels per day to meet summer gas demand.
On top of that, U.S. oil putting out is still being held back by a shortage of pipelines in the Permian Basin, the epicenter of the U.S. drilling renaissance. Those bottlenecks won’t cloudless until the second half of the year.
“All of this is happening with near chaos in Libya, trouble in Nigeria and utter chaos in Venezuela,” Kloza said. “We had some time. Probably if this happened five months from now we’d be in a lot change ones mind shape because the U.S. will be producing another million barrels a day of crude.”