‘Iran is in for the long haul’ with oil tanker hijacks, expert says, as U.S. considers more sanctions
Iranian soldiers take part in an annual military drill in the coast of the Gulf of Oman and near the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
Anadolu | Anadolu | Getty Images
The containership MSC Aries seized by Iran over the weekend marked at least the sixth vessel hijacked by Iran and its proxies in response to the Israel-Gaza war, and it’s adding to the challenges to longstanding freedom of navigation principles that maritime shipping relies on.
Before this weekend’s tanker seizure, the last vessel Iran hijacked was the St. Nikolas on January 1. According to U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, that brought the total number of vessels being held to five, and over 90 crew members hostage. Previous to that, the Iranian-backed Houthis hijacked The Galaxy Leader on November 19.
The latest development has shipping and energy experts bracing for a long-term timeline of uncertainty.
“Iran is in this for the long haul,” said Samir Madani, co-founder of Tankertrackers.com, an independent online service that tracks and reports crude oil shipments in several geographical and geopolitical points of interest.
The MSC Aries was identified by Iran as having a link to Israel. The containership has a carrying capacity of 15,000-TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent containers). MSC chartered the vessel, but it is owned by Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer’s Zodiac Maritime.
MSC declined to comment.
Madani said he does not expect a quick release or negotiation of a release. “They will hold the MSC Aries for a long period. Iran has been holding some tankers for about a year, if not longer now,” he said.
According to Tankertracker information, Madani said the vessel is being held in the Khuran Straits, not too far from three other tankers Iran hijacked: the Advantage Sweet, Niovi, and St. Nikolas.
A Planet Labs satellite image of the location of the MSC Aries and other tankers recently hijacked by Iran.
Planet Labs PBC
As the U.S. considers more sanctions against Iran in response to its recent attack on Israel, Iran has been using the hijacked ships as a means of sanctions retaliation.
“Iran has already seized the Kuwaiti oil that was onboard the Advantage Sweet and has been loaded onto their VLCC supertanker the Navarz. Iran chose to do this as a way to compensate for sanctions,” Madani said.
While the Niovi was empty at the time of the seizure, the St. Nikolas is filled with a million barrels of Iraqi oil.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Tuesday that the government may do more to prevent Iran’s ability to export oil despite U.S. sanctions. China’s purchases of Iranian oil in recent years have allowed Iran to keep a positive trade balance.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, China, the world’s largest importer of crude oil, imported 11.3 million barrels per day of crude oil in 2023, 10% more than in 2022. Iran ranked second in oil exports to China behind Russia. Customs data indicates that China imported 54% more crude oil (1.1 million b/d) from Malaysia in 2023 than in 2022, with industry analysts speculating that much of the oil shipped from Iran to China was relabeled as originating from countries such as Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman to avoid U.S. sanctions.
The markets continues to assess the risk of further escalation in the military tensions between Israel and Iran, which could lead to a disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 30% of the world’s seaborne oil passes, according to JPMorgan. On Tuesday, oil edged higher amid talk of sanctions.
An Iranian blockade would supercharge oil prices, but the risk is low given that the strait has never been closed off despite many threats by Tehran to do so over the past four decades, according to JPMorgan.
“They can’t close the Strait of Hormuz, but they can do significant damage to energy infrastructure, to vessels in the region,” RBC’s head of global commodity strategy and Middle East and North Africa research, Helima Croft, told CNBC on Monday, referring to Iran’s capabilities.
“While I can’t imagine Iran would want to fill up their anchorage with vessels, they want to keep the waters in a constant state of chaos,” Madani said. But with a closure, he said, “They would shoot themselves in the foot since their biggest client is China.”
Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates, says the closure of the Strait of Hormuz would result in a spike of Brent crude oil prices to the $120 to $130 range. “This would strain ties with China and India who purchase a significant amount of Persian Gulf oil to meet much of their energy demand.”
Lipow also said Iran might be reluctant to shut the waterway for fear of antagonizing Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq, who depend on the strait being open for most of their oil exports. The bigger immediate fear in the oil market, he said, is that the attack by Iran on Israeli territory leading to a counterattack by Israel on Iran damaging oil-producing and exporting facilities.
Kevin Book, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners, says the markets need to keep an eye on sanctions from both the US and UN potentially.
In a note to clients, ClearView highlighted that the House of Representatives added several Iran sanctions bills to its calendar for consideration this week, under suspension rules, including new sanctions on Iranian oil exports to China. Book said the House was considering 11 bills in all in response to Iran’s attack on Israel.
“We think most if not all bills could garner (notionally) veto-proof bipartisan support,” the note said. “Passage requires a two-thirds majority of all members present and voting.”
Israel has also asked the U.N. to reinstate multilateral sanctions lifted by the Iran nuclear deal, but for this to happen, France, Germany and the U.K., parties to the nuclear deal, would have to agree. “There are many risks unfolding. The forest is on fire,” Book said.
Environment
The global critical minerals race is heating up — and rare earths stocks are skyrocketing
A wheel loader takes ore to a crusher at the MP Materials rare earth mine in Mountain Pass, California, U.S. January 30, 2020.
Steve Marcus | Reuters
The emergence of critical minerals as a new arena of geopolitical competition has coincided with a dizzying rally in U.S.-listed rare earths mining stocks.
Despite paring gains in recent weeks, shares of Critical Metals have advanced 241% over the last three months, while NioCorp Developments, Energy Fuels and Idaho Strategic Resources have all surged well above 100% over the same period.
The eye-watering gains are even more remarkable year-to-date. Energy Fuels’ stock price has quadrupled through the first 10 months of the year, while NioCorp Developments’ shares have nearly quintupled.
Rare earths have come to the fore as a key bargaining chip in the ongoing geopolitical rivalry between the U.S. and China, the world’s two largest economies.
Tony Sage, CEO of Critical Metals, which has one of the world’s largest rare earths deposits in southern Greenland, described the rally of U.S.-listed rare earths miners as evidence of a major market boom.
“I talk of it like this, I mean, there have been four big booms. You had the gold boom in the 19th century, the oil boom in the 20th century, in the early 21st century you had the tech boom — and now you’ve got the rare earths boom,” Sage told CNBC by telephone.
“But the rare earths boom is the future. It will power all of the above.”
We are going from a philosophy of ‘fill the gap’ through imports to ‘mine the gap’ domestically or regionally.
Audun Martinsen
Head of supply chain research at Rystad Energy
Rare earths refer to 17 elements on the periodic table that have an atomic structure that gives them special magnetic properties. These materials are vital components to a vast array of modern technologies, from everyday electronics, such as smartphones, to electric vehicles and military equipment.
China, which has a near-monopoly on rare earths, recently threatened to expand its export controls on the elements to further leverage its dominance of the supply chain. However, following an in-person meeting in South Korea on Thursday between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Beijing agreed to delay the Oct. 9 export controls by one year.
U.S.-listed rare earths stocks rallied on the news, although analysts remain skeptical about whether the apparent trade truce can offer long-term relief.
U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping as they hold a bilateral meeting at Gimhae International Airport, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, in Busan, South Korea, October 30, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
“As in all booms, there were a lot of oil companies that couldn’t find oil and there were a lot of gold companies that couldn’t find gold. And I’m sure there are going to be a lot of rare earths companies that won’t make it either — because when there’s a boom, there’s hype. And when there’s hype, there’s overexuberance in investing,” Critical Metals’ Sage said.
“It’s not a straight rise up. It’s a jagged line, but the trend is in the right direction if you’ve got the right project in the right place, and you’ve got the right partners,” he added.
‘A much bigger and longer supercycle’
Kevin Das, senior technical consultant at New Frontier Minerals, an Australian-based rare earths explorer, agreed with Sage’s description of a rare earths market boom, while acknowledging the likelihood of stock price pullbacks.
“People are saying we’re in an uptrend on what is a bigger supercycle and some of the evidence behind that is there has been low commodity prices for some time, there’s been underinvestment. And now, with the advent of AI … we’re going to see a much bigger and longer supercycle,” Das told CNBC by telephone.
Das drew parallels between the Biden administration’s support of clean energy projects, which coincided with a rally in lithium-related stocks, and the Trump administration’s backing of rare earths.
Shares of Critical Metals over the last three months.
“In the last nine to 10 months that Trump has been in power, he’s talked about annexing Greenland, he’s talked about doing a deal with Ukraine for rare earths and then the real clincher was this equity deal with MP Materials,” Das said.
“So, I think the runway over the next two to three years is going to be very fruitful,” he added.
Not everyone is as bullish on the outlook for rare earths-related stocks, however.
Audun Martinsen, head of supply chain research at Rystad Energy, said the recent surge in equity prices reflected a mix of geopolitical tension, strategic policy support and speculative momentum.
“Rare earths have clearly moved to the center of global industrial strategy, vital for defense, EVs and clean energy, but this looks more like the early stages of a structural shift than a mature ‘fourth boom,'” Martinsen told CNBC by email.
Neodymium is displayed at the Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare-Earth Hi-Tech Co. factory in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, China, on Wednesday, May 5, 2010.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
“We are going from a philosophy of ‘fill the gap’ through imports to ‘mine the gap’ domestically or regionally,” he continued. “It will be a lengthy, expensive and rocky path forward as adequate, cost-effective resources and element diversity are complex to get full control over.”
Clean energy transition
Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia University, said there were two clear factors at work as global competition intensifies to secure the supply of critical minerals — one structural and the other political.
“The structural: Despite whatever political attempts there may be to stop or derail things, the clean-energy transition is happening — and it is accelerating — and yes, it depends on a number of critical minerals, whose prices are bound to jump,” Wagner told CNBC by email.
China, for instance, is the low-cost supplier of many of these minerals, Wagner said, noting that the Asian giant’s mineral dominance is by no means an accident.
“Beijing has invested heavily in green industrial policy for years, focusing on the full, integrated supply chain. That’s where politics enters,” Wagner said.
“Some attempts to onshore supply chains are eminently justified for national security and other reasons, and those attempts will increase prices and stocks of U.S. mining companies. Some of what we see, of course, is merely the current politics or erratic trade wars and the like,” he added.
For the last few weeks, we’ve been running a sidebar survey about how much Electrek readers think it would cost to add EV charging systems to their homes. After receiving over twenty-four hundred responses, here’s what you told us.
In our previous survey, we asked readers why they chose to install solar panels at home. In the recap, many of our commenters mentioned having their systems systems pull double duty — charging home backup batteries and topping off their electric cars. That got us thinking: as more and more first-time EV owners look into the many benefits of home charging, how much do they expect to pay for home charging?
Based on over 2,400 responses, this is what you told us.
What do you expect to pay for home charging?
The most positive surprise was that more than a third of Electrek readers who responded to the poll already had 240V outlets in their garage, so they expected to pay effectively $0 – their homes are EV ready now!
Of the remaining 64%, 44% were fairly evenly split between a relatively straightforward ~$500-1,000 wiring job with a few wiring or panel upgrades while only about 18% expected to spend over $1,000 due to having an older home, a detached garage, or for some other (apparently pricey and/or inconvenient) reason.
Navigating the questions
Just like you would for home solar, we’d recommend getting a quote from several installers before making a decision. One of our trusted partners, Qmerit, offers a quote-sourcing service called PowerHouse. The service scans pricing from thousands of completed electrification installations across North America to provide the best quotes that take regional variability into account and work with homeowners to “bundle” chargers, installation, and even batteries.
America has arrived at an inflection point in which all of the technical, policy and financial elements are in place to support a societal shift toward whole-home electrification. Now what’s needed is a comprehensive way to assemble these complex elements into a simple, financeable, home-energy retrofit that makes it easier to implement.
QMERIT FOUNDER TRACY PRICE
Qmerit says its new bundling program can flag the potential for federal, state, and local utility incentives like the ones we’ve covered from Illinois utility ComEd and others that can reduce or even eliminate the upfront costs of home installations for many.
Original content from Electrek.
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Following a lawsuit brought against the California Air Resources Board (CARB) by major heavy truck manufacturers over California’s emissions requirements, CARB has struck back with fresh lawsuit of its own alleging that the manufacturers violated the terms of the 2023 Clean Truck Partnership agreement to sell cleaner vehicles.
Daimler Truck North America, International Motors, Paccar and Volvo Group North America sued the California Air Resources Board in federal court this past August, seeking to invalidate the Clean Truck Partnership emissions reduction deal they signed with the state in 2023 to move away from traditional trucks and toward zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs). The main point of the lawsuit was that, because the incoming Trump Administration rolled back Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) policies that had previously given individual states the right to set their own environmental and emissions laws, the truck makers shouldn’t have to honor the deals signed with individual states.
“Plaintiffs are caught in the crossfire: California demands that OEMs follow preempted laws; the United States maintains such laws are illegal and orders OEMs to disregard them,” the lawsuit reads. “Accordingly, Plaintiff OEMs file this lawsuit to clarify their legal obligations under federal and state law and to enjoin California from enforcing standards preempted by federal law.”
After several weeks of waiting for a response, we finally have one: CARB is suing the OEMs right back, claiming that the initial suit proves the signing manufacturers, “(have) unambiguously stated that they do not intend to comply.”
They want to sell Americans more diesel
In its lawsuit, CARB argues that monetary damages alone would not make the people of the State of California whole as far as damages are concerned, citing that the stated goal of the 2023 Clean Truck Partnership was, “to achieve emissions reductions that cannot be measured strictly in financial terms,” according to ACT-News.
The agency is asking the court to compel the truck companies to perform on their 2023 obligations or, failing that, to allow CARB to rescind the contract and recover its costs. A hearing on the truck makers’ request for a preliminary injunction was held Friday, with another court date set for November 21, when CARB will seek to dismiss the case brought forth by the truck brands. The outcome of these cases could shape how state and federal government agencies cooperation on emissions rules in the future.
You can read the full 22-page lawsuit, below, then let us know what you think of CARB’s response (and their chances of succeeding) in the comments.
SOURCES: CARB; via ACT-News, Trucking Dive.
If you’re considering going solar, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.
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