Ammon News - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that many tanker ships are en route to the United States to transport oil ​and gas to other countries.

"Massive numbers of completely empty oil tankers, some of ‌the largest anywhere in the World, are heading, right now, to the United States to load up with the best and "sweetest" oil and gas anywhere in the World," Trump said in a Truth Social post.

His ​post came as senior U.S. and Iranian officials met on Saturday in Islamabad with Pakistani ​intermediaries for talks about the war that started on February 28 with U.S.-Israeli ⁠attacks on Iran and subsequently expanded as Iranian forces began striking nearby countries.

Trump said earlier ​this week Iran should not charge fees to tankers going through the Strait of Hormuz, which ​has been mostly closed to shipping since the war began, causing the worst disruption to global energy supplies in history.

Crude oil futures have spiked since the start of the war and the closure of the strait. ​U.S. oil now trades at a premium to the global benchmark, Brent . U.S. crude oil ​settled at $96.57 a barrel on Friday, while Brent was at $95.20.

Jake Dollarhide, chief executive officer of Longbow Asset Management ‌in ⁠Tulsa, Oklahoma, said while he cannot comment on whether empty tankers are heading to the United States for oil, the ongoing Hormuz closure could generally boost demand for U.S. oil.

"We're producing so much more oil than we were 10 years ago," he said. "The situation with the Strait ​of Hormuz, even with ​the peace talks, could ⁠take months in a best-case scenario to work out, so absolutely U.S. oil will be higher in demand as a result. Whether that ​plays out to fruition with actually people sending their empty tankers our ​way, I ⁠have no idea."

While Trump's post about oil tankers "sounds good from an American point of view," investors are more focused on the talks between the U.S. and Iran to end the war, said Robert Pavlik, ⁠senior ​portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth in Fairfield, Connecticut.
"We're all ​waiting — everybody along with Wall Street — to see what comes about from these discussions," he said.

Reuters