Stopgap measures aren't enough to halt rising gas prices as the world
scrambles for more oil
[April 01, 2026] By
CATHY BUSSEWITZ
NEW YORK (AP) — Global leaders have been scrambling to contain the
rising cost of oil and gasoline since the start of the Iran war, which
took a record amount of oil off the market when tankers full of crude
were stranded in the Persian Gulf and military strikes damaged
refineries, pipelines and export terminals.
Hoping to ease some pain for consumers, President Donald Trump and other
heads of state have been pulling on various levers, launching more oil
on the market in a bid to calm the chaos.
A group of 32 nations that are members of the International Energy
Agency began releasing the largest volume of emergency oil reserves in
its history: 400 million barrels. Trump is tapping into oil from the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve while lifting sanctions on Russian and
Iranian crude and temporarily waiving the Jones Act, a maritime law that
requires ships carrying goods between U.S. ports to be U.S.-flagged.
But despite those maneuvers, crude oil surpassed $100 a barrel and
gasoline is selling for $4.06 a gallon on average in the U.S. While the
stopgaps are helping, they're not adding up to enough oil to replace
what's stranded, experts say.
“They're all incremental,” said Mark Barteau, professor of chemical
engineering and chemistry at Texas A&M University. "You’re talking about
these different patches being at the level of maybe 1 to 2 million
barrels a day each, and you’ve got to get to 20, so it’s hard to see
those actually adding up to the numbers that are needed. And then the
question is, how long can you sustain those?”
Trapped oil
Before the war began, roughly 15 million barrels of crude oil and 5
million barrels of oil products passed daily through the Strait of
Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, amounting to about 20% of
global oil consumption, according to the International Energy Agency.
In addition to that loss, some oil producing nations in the Middle East
have halted oil production because they can't ship fuel out of the Gulf
and their storage tanks are full. That's taken about 10 million more
barrels per day off the market, the IEA said.
Then there are the eight countries around the Persian Gulf that together
hold about 50% of global oil reserves. Under normal circumstances, they
coordinate closely to raise or lower their output to keep prices steady,
said Jim Krane, energy research fellow at Rice University’s Baker
Institute. Usually Saudi Arabia steps in to bring spare oil to market
and calm things down, he said.
“But all of that spare capacity is also bottled up inside the Persian
Gulf right now and it can’t get to market either,” Krane said. “So the
main emergency response system that we have is also blocked.”
The IEA said in its recent report that “the resumption of transit
through the Strait of Hormuz is the single most important action to
return to stable oil and gas flows and reduce the strains on markets and
prices.”
Barring that, world leaders are grasping for ways to free up more oil.
Limitations of short-term fixes
Some nations have found workarounds to move oil out of the Gulf. Saudi
Arabia is using its East-West pipeline, which stretches from the Persian
Gulf to the Red Sea, to transfer about 5 million barrels per day out of
the Gulf, said Michael Lynch, distinguished fellow at Energy Policy
Research Foundation, a non-partisan institution focused on energy and
economics. But the nation was already using that pipeline to transport
oil, so it doesn’t have a lot of spare room to move oil from stranded
tankers.
Trump also temporarily lifted sanctions on approximately 140 million
barrels of Iranian oil that was already in transit. But that didn’t add
oil to the market — it just widened the pool of potential buyers, said
Daniel Sternoff, senior fellow at the Columbia Center on Global Energy
Policy.
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The sun has set behind a gas station in Frankfurt, Germany, Tuesday,
March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
 Typically, most Iranian oil was
bought by private refiners in China, who purchased it at a steep
discount, Sternoff said. But with sanctions lifted, others could
scramble to buy the oil, which in turn raises its price to the
benefit of Iran, he said.
“As soon as you are moving to waive sanctions on your adversary with
whom you’re fighting a military conflict, to do something in their
benefit, it just shows you that you are running out of options to
try to prevent a rise in the price of oil,” Sternoff said.
The decision to lift sanctions on Russian oil could have more
impact, because Russia had been storing unpurchased oil in tankers,
Sternoff said. “By waiving sanctions, it will allow those barrels to
clear.”
Trump’s temporary waiver of the Jones Act to allow foreign ships to
temporarily transport goods between U.S. ports could potentially
help ease natural gas prices by enabling companies to more
efficiently ship liquefied natural gas from the Gulf Coast to New
England.
But experts don’t expect the waiver to significantly impact the
price of oil or gasoline. “It’s helpful, but not a game changer,”
Lynch said.
Why U.S. oil production can't solve the problem
The U.S. is a major oil producer, and exports more oil than it
imports. But like any other oil producing nation, it can't just ramp
up production instantly to fill the void.
“If the U.S. were to try to make up the global shortfall, we would
need to nearly double our production,” Barteau said. “We couldn’t
drill wells that fast even if we wanted to.”
Increasing domestic production by even 1 million barrels per day, a
feat the U.S. accomplished during the shale boom, would be hard to
duplicate, Lynch said.
“If we run every drilling rig right now, what happens a week from
now when the war is over and the price goes back down $20?” Lynch
asked. “People don’t want to develop long-term production based on a
short-term price spike.”
Halting exports and using that oil within the U.S. wouldn't bring
down gasoline prices either, experts say.
For one, oil is traded on a global market, so events happening
halfway around the globe impact prices for everyone.
In addition, the U.S. doesn't produce enough of the type of oil its
refineries process. It produced about 13.7 million barrels per day
of oil at the end of 2025, according to the Energy Information
Administration. And refineries processed about 16.3 million barrels
per day that year, relying on imports to fill in the gaps, according
to the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), a trade
association.
That's because nearly 70% of U.S. refineries are set up to process
heavy, sour crude, according to AFPM. But much of the oil produced
in the U.S. is light, sweet crude, which was unlocked during the
shale revolution.
“They need different crudes than the ones that are being produced
right next to them now,” Krane said.
As a result, just 60% of the crude oil processed in U.S. refineries
is extracted domestically, according to the AFPM. And retooling
domestic refineries would cost billions of dollars, the group said.
It also would require shutting down the refinery for a period of
time, which generally raises gasoline prices.
“A lot of people like the IEA are making the point that this is the
biggest oil crisis ever, which is partly true, partly an
exaggeration, depending on how you count things,” Lynch said. “A lot
of it has to do with how long does this last ... if it goes on for
another six weeks we get to be in some serious trouble.”
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