Energy Secretary Chris Wright told ABC’s “This Week” that Americans should expect gas prices to decrease steadily through the summer as “the United States military has been escorting ships” through the Strait of Hormuz. “Flows of oil and natural gas through the strait have already returned to normal, and they will continue that way, whatever happens with the negotiations with the Iranians,” he said. “We’ve got growing American production, surging production in Venezuela. We’ve got cooperation with all the other energy producers of the world. So I think Americans can expect continued declines in energy prices.” <\/p>\n
JON KARL, ABC NEWS: What do you expect to come from this first round of talks? ENERGY SECRETARY CHRIS WRIGHT: I think this first candid dialogue will set out what the Iranian goals are and what they think the tradeoffs they might have to make are. We’ve just never been in this situation before. The U.S. military, both in the actions to destroy the Iranian military capabilities and to force a way through the Strait of Hormuz without any dialogue, have just put the Iranians in a massively different situation. They don’t have the leverage they’ve always had in talks before. KARL: Well, let me ask you about the Strait, because the vice president said the Strait is open, the Iranians said it’s closed. And we heard that 55 ships came through yesterday. What is the status? Are we partially opened? Is there really — when do we get back to the levels that we had before the war? WRIGHT: Well, 55 ships two days ago, as you said, 67 went through yesterday on an oil and oil products volumes about equal to where we were before the war. But there’s three channels through the straits. There’s the middle normal navigational channel that, unfortunately, the Iranians have mined. So that needs to be de-mined. Then there’s a separate route up north by the Iranian islands that they’ve tried to force ships through. And then there’s a southern route that the United States military has been escorting ships through for several weeks. And I think it’s that returning flows back towards normal without any cooperation at all from Iran, that’s the leverage President Trump used to get the Iranians to come to the table and realize they’re going to lose all the cards in their hand. Maybe they can make a deal that brings some benefit to Iran. Maybe they can’t. KARL: So we’ve seen oil prices have come down pretty significantly even before the reopening started. How soon do you expect gas prices to get down to the levels that we saw before this war? WRIGHT: Oh, I’ve got long out of the business of predicting oil or gasoline prices, but they will continue to head down. Flows of oil and natural gas through the strait have already returned to normal, and they will continue that way, whatever happens with the negotiations with the Iranians. We’ve got growing American production, surging production in Venezuela. We’ve got cooperation with all the other energy producers of the world. So I think Americans can expect continued declines in energy prices. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
You can find the full interview here: