gulf | The Global Barrel

ENGLISH version. Sky News (UAE), 20 August 2026, Dr. Tom O’Donnell (in Berlin).

I told Sky (UAE), Hormuz is now “a game of chicken” – who can wait the longest and bear the most pain. I tried to look objectively at the two sides.

a) On the Iran side, oil exports are reportedly zero since about 15 July. None of Iran’s oil ships seem to have left Hormuz. A massive accumulation of Iranian oil cargo sits on ships near Malaysia and Singapore, while perhaps 53 loaded ships are stuck in the Gulf due to the US Navy blockade. For a petrostate, this is devastating.

In addition, all Iranian ports are blocked form exporting or importing anything.

What oil can perhaps leave by train to China, say 70,000 barrels per train taking two weeks, is painfully small and costly.

Trump has now declared a push to block any payments or financial transfers to and from Iran. But, if no one is selling anything in either direction, there will be less and less financial flows to block.

For the regime, this is dire. It does not mean Iran will surrender, or even talk, but it is clearly devastating.

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My Asharq interview, along with Mohammed Al-Dabai, Saudi energy journalist, on 13 April 23. (This post has English interpreter’s audio and my voice over the Arabic. View in Arabic here.)

At about timestamp 5:30, I discuss the difficulties with the Gulf states exporting “green hydrogen” to Germany and the EU.

So little renewable carbon-free energy is produced in MENA and esp. in Gulf states (i.e., almost none), and it would be so inefficient to convert this into “green hydrogen” and then further into “green ammonia” (as many in Germany and the EU now advocate), and then to ship it all the way to Germany or elsewhere in the EU, that it would make little sense, except in so far as Germany and EU states are willing to pay a good price.

However, it would also leave the MENA region with little improvement in their carbon-heavy electricity consumption. Mr. Al-Dabai generally concurred on the “scientific” problems, as he described them, of producing and exporting green hydrogen.

We were discussing a recent Ember consultancy report (London, link below) on the progress of renewable electricity worldwide, and how there is little progress in the Gulf and larger MENA region.

However, I briefly pointed to nuclear developments, the building of new So. Korean Generation 3+ plants in the UAE, and to Saudi plans, as very promising.

However, as with other renewables-focused outfits, Ember doesn’t seem to see any value in this pragmatic approach, not to mention the benefits of coal-to-natural-gas switching as a very reasonable, carbon-emmissions-reduction strategy.

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Tag Archives: gulf

I told Sky: Besides Trump’s economic war, the US Navy is eroding Iran’s Hormuz blockade. Oil flows rebound. Allies scramble to buy ships [EN,AR]

My Asharq with Saudi expert: MENA green hydrogen exports will be inefficient & counter-productive for climate. Renewables still almost “nonexistent”, nuclear is pragmatic.

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