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Article: US-Iran encounter highlights chokepoints in global oil trade.
- Article from:
- The Oil Daily
- Article date:
- January 9, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Energy Intelligence Group. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Before the sun rose in the US on Monday, oil prices had already spiked on news of a brief but tense encounter between Iranian speed boats and US war ships in the Mideast Gulf over the weekend. It was a reminder of how sensitive oil prices can be to showdowns between the two countries--the world's fourth-largest oil exporter and its biggest oil importer. Washington and Tehran have a history of tense relations stretching back three decades.
The encounter, which ended without incident, took place in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most sensitive transit routes in the global oil trade. Roughly two-fifths of all seaborne oil, or about 17 million barrels per day, ...