From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Audrey Streb

Iran is reportedly weighing blocking a key commercial choke point known as the Strait of Hormuz, a move that could drive up energy costs in the U.S. and across the globe, according to energy sector experts who spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Israel began to bombard Iran to eliminate the Islamic Republic’s ability to build a nuclear weapon on June 13, and the U.S. carried out “Operation Midnight Hammer” on Saturday night, bombing three of Iran’s nuclear facilities. While Iran’s parliament has reportedly voted to close the Strait of Hormuz in a retaliatory move to choke the world’s oil supply in response to the American strikes, the U.S. is well-positioned to combat the inevitable energy cost spike that would follow if Iran succeeds, sector experts told the DCNF.

“The escalating conflict between Iran and Israel is already putting upward pressure on oil and natural gas prices—and that pressure will intensify if the Strait of Hormuz is blocked,” Trisha Curtis, an economist at the American Energy Institute, told the DCNF. “This kind of disruption would send global prices higher and tighten supply chains. Fortunately, the U.S. is well-positioned to respond — our domestic production strength and growing export infrastructure make American oil and natural gas increasingly indispensable to global markets.”

Iran does not have the legal authority to halt traffic through the strait, meaning it would need to usurp control through force or the threat of force, according to legal scholars and multiple reports. The Iranian parliament’s reported move to block the Strait on Sunday awaits final approval by Iran’s Supreme Council, according to Iran’s Press TV.

The Strait is only 35 to 60 miles wide and connects the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean, flowing past Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. The thoroughfare is vital for global trade, as tankers carried one fifth of the world’s oil supply through the Strait of Hormuz in 2024 and the first quarter of 2025, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Roughly 20 million barrels of oil pass through the Strait of Hormuz on a daily basis, Curtis noted. Some liquified natural gas (LNG) exports would also be blocked if the Strait of Hormuz were closed, she said.

Iran has reportedly been warning that it could close the strait for weeks, with one Iranian lawmaker and a member of the parliament’s National Security Committee presidium both quoted as saying that Iran could respond to enemy attacks by disturbing the West’s oil supply. Maritime agencies and the U.K. Navy have advised ships to avoid the Strait in recent weeks, given the potential threat.

Other energy experts pointed to how the Russia-Ukraine war led to a worldwide spike in energy costs.

From Energy Now

By Ron Wallace

OPEC Secretary-General Haitam Al Ghais recently delivered a message in Alberta that energy policies should be “based on reality, not ideology.”  These comments are particularly relevant to Canada given the history of the past decade and the future policy path being proposed by the Carney government. Secretary Al Ghais cited studies from the IEA that noted in the past decade global investment in “clean energy” has approached $17 trillion with the result that renewable sources currently supply less than 4% of the world’s energy.  Meanwhile, initiatives such as the introduction of EV’s, which apparently continues as a priority policy for Canada, have reached a total global penetration rate of less than 4% as electric cars are increasingly losing their appeal among new drivers in Western nations.

Considering an annual estimated cost of USD $640 billion required to maintain and secure global energy sources, the Secretary-General stressed the importance of “consistent messaging” for capital investment markets as they prepare to meet future energy demands through to 2050.  By that time OPEC foresees oil and gas comprising more than 53% of the global energy mix with predictions that global oil demand will rise to more than 120 million barrels per day (mb/d) from the104 mb/d today. As for Alberta, he noted:

“Alberta’s success fits with the inclusive all-energies, all-technologies and all-peoples energy futures that OPC continues to advocate for – one based on realities, not ideologies such as unrealistic net zero targets that fixated on deadlines and dismissed certain energies.”

These words are highly relevant for Alberta and Canada, coming precisely at a time when the Federal government is debating new legislation (Bill C-5) that seeks to accelerate regulatory processes for selected projects. It remains to be seen if this approach will lead to heightened co-operation between Federal and provincial governments.

Federal aspirations, largely focused on Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson will quickly be tested by an increasingly impatient Alberta government that has announced plans to entice a private-sector player to build a major crude pipeline to coastal waters. In that regard, Premiers from Alberta and Saskatchewan are increasingly advocating for the repeal of policies like the West Coast tanker ban and net-zero electricity regulations, as they press for the development of defined energy corridors to access tidewaters noting that: “The federal government must remove the barriers it created and fix the federal project approval processes so that private sector proponents have the confidence to invest.” As Premier Moe has argued, if Canada scrapped policies such as proposed caps on oil and gas emissions Saskatchewan, which is currently Canada’s second-largest oil-producing province, could double its annual oil production.

It is more than ironic that controversial legislation currently being fast-tracked through the House (Bill C-5) effectively admits that the raft of Acts and Regulations enacted under the Trudeau government constitute material barriers to national development. The federal government, instead of repealing, or substantially amending that legislation some of which is being challenged, has received tough love from the Supreme Court, instead proposes to give Cabinet the power to suspend the IAA and several other key Acts in order to speed the process of issuing development applications and permits. By not doing the heavy lifting in Parliament needed to repeal or modify the burdensome legislative mandates enacted over the past decade, Carney’s remarkable approach instead chooses to circumvent that legislative base with the arbitrary suspensions of selected laws.

Meanwhile, Bill C-5 has received attention from parliamentarians and Indigenous communities. Former Trudeau-era Justice Minister Wilson-Raybould has commented that Bill C-5 has been developed “behind closed doors” to allow the federal government to “make decisions and build projects on its own terms, at its own pace and based on rules that it choses to make up as they go along.”  Their concern is that the proposed law would give unprecedented powers to the federal cabinet to fast-track projects that the Cabinet defines as being in “national interest” allowing them to sidestep Canadian laws such as the Indian Act, Fisheries Act, Migratory Birds Convention Act and Canadian Environment Protection Act. Assumptions that the Act is being designed to facilitate oil and gas, as opposed to renewable energy, projects remain to be seen.

Recall that there remains long-simmering federal-provincial tensions rooted in jurisdictional disputes over the Impact Assessment Act (IAA) (or Bill C-69) which the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) ruled as having parts that constituted an unconstitutional, “impermissible intrusion“ federal overreach into provincial jurisdiction. Subsequently, the Federal Court overturned Canada’s ban on single-use plastic having deemed that policy to be “unreasonable and unconstitutional”. The federal Clean Electricity Regulations (published in November 2024) are strongly opposed by Alberta which in April 2025 filed a reference case with the Alberta Court of Appeal to challenge the constitutionality of those Regulations with arguments that Canada’s constitution under Section 92A grants exclusive jurisdiction to the province for the generation and production of electrical energy.

Instead of providing regulatory and investment certainty the federal government has chosen to advance Bill C-5 that introduces more, not less, uncertainty into the Canadian energy development and regulatory process. One should ask: Does a process designed to over-ride existing laws and statutes operated by a closed Cabinet that reaches decisions based on “criteria” set by Ottawa, provide enhanced investment certainty for proponents of major energy projects?

Alternatively, would it not be better to amend or repeal existing, punitive federal laws and regulations, starting with those that are presently being actively challenged by the provinces in the courts? Canada needs to ask itself if, with this legislation, we will achieve the “consistent messaging” required to attract the capital investment for energy projects as was highlighted by the Secretary-General.

Ron Wallace is a former Member of the National Energy Board.