‘Wish I had better news’: Energy expert sounds alarm over impending 'authentic crisis'

Former White House energy advisor Bob McNally sounded the alarm Sunday on what he called an “authentic crisis” sparked by President Donald Trump’s attack on Iran, a crisis that he predicted would soon usher in “galloping further increases in oil prices.”

“I wish I had better news: the world is now a little more than a week into the largest oil disruption ever in history,” McNally said, appearing on CNN Sunday. “The 20 million barrels a day that have stopped flowing from [Strait of] Hormuz to the world is twice the amount of the biggest last disruption, which is all the way back in the 1950s, the Suez Crisis.”

Trump authorized an unprecedented strike on Iran earlier this month, an attack that reportedly led Iranian leadership to close the Strait of Hormuz, a major shipping route through which around a fifth of the world’s oil trade passes through. Critics immediately voiced fears that the attack on Iran could spike energy costs worldwide, and on Sunday, McNally appeared to confirm those fears.

“This is an authentic crisis, it needs to stop soon. We need to get freedom of navigation going and that flow through Hormuz restarted,” McNally continued.

“Before this started, people didn't think it was possible, no one thought that an adversary could shut down the Strait of Hormuz, that didn't happen even in the 1980s during the tanker war. Now everyone's asking how long can it last. Can't take another few weeks of this, I think we're going to see galloping further increases in oil prices, and it's going to start to hurt equities as well.”

McNally previously served in the Bush administration as the special assistant to the president on the White House National Economic Council, and later, as the senior director for International Energy on the National Security Council. He is also the founder and president of Rapidan Energy Group, a consulting firm based in Washington, D.C.