(Epoch Times) A spokesperson for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on March 9 that Tehran would not allow any Middle Eastern oil to reach the United States or its allies as long as attacks against Iran continue.

The spokesperson, General Ali Mohammad Naeini, was cited by the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency as saying that Iran’s military “will not allow a single liter of oil to be exported from the region until further notice due to ongoing aggressions” by the United States and Israel.

Naeini suggested that an Iranian oil shipment blockade would send crude prices soaring, and that any attempts by the United States and its allies to bring down oil prices would prove “temporary and fruitless.”

Crude prices have surged in recent days, although after President Donald Trump on March 9 described the war against Iran as “very complete, pretty much,” much of Monday’s historic jump in crude oil prices reversed, while Asian and European equities rebounded on March 10 after steep earlier losses.

The Iranian general’s threat comes amid a sharpened focus on the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical maritime shipping chokepoints through which some 20 percent of the world’s oil is exported from the Persian Gulf.

Since the United States and Israel launched their Feb. 28 strikes on Iran, shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz—which runs close to Iran’s coastline—has slowed to a near standstill. The IRGC has attacked around a dozen commercial carriers in or near the strait with drones and missiles, prompting the biggest global shipping insurers to cite war risks and cancel policies, leaving ships unwilling to transit the strait.

Fears of Global Energy Shock

Saudi Arabia’s Aramco, the world’s top oil exporter, said ​on March 10 that there would be “catastrophic consequences” for the world’s oil markets if the Iran war continues to disrupt ‌shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

“There would be catastrophic consequences for the world’s oil markets and the longer the disruption ​goes on … the more drastic the consequences for the global economy,” Aramco CEO Amin Nasser told reporters ⁠on an earnings call.

“While we have faced disruptions in the past, this one by far is the biggest crisis the region’s ​oil and gas industry has faced.”

Earlier, Qatari Energy Minister Saad Sherida al-Kaabi told the Financial Times on March 6 that oil prices could soar to $150 a barrel within two to three weeks if tankers and other merchant vessels are unable to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told PBS on March 10 that Tehran had not blocked the Strait of Hormuz and that Iranian strikes against oil production facilities of America’s allies in the Gulf are a legitimate act of self-defence.

“The oil production, the transportation of oil has been slowed down or stopped not because of us, because of the attacks and aggression made by Israelis and Americans against us,” he said.

“So they have made the whole region insecure. And this is why the tankers, the ships are scared to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

“We have already warned everybody in the region that, if the U.S. attack us, since we cannot reach the American soil, we have to attack their bases in the region, their facilities, their installations, their assets,” Araghchi said. “And as a result, the war would be spread into the whole region,” he added.

Trump Warns Iran Against Blocking Strait of Hormuz

Trump, meanwhile, insisted on March 9 that U.S. military power would be sufficient to keep oil flowing. Speaking at a press conference at his golf resort near Miami, Trump warned that if Iran blocks oil through the Strait of Hormuz, it will “get hit at a much, much harder level.”

The president also said in an interview with CBS that the United States was “very far” ahead of the initial four to five weeks estimated time period for the war, adding that his administration is considering taking over the Strait of Hormuz to secure oil shipments if need be.

Despite the sharp rhetoric from both sides, investors placed strong bets on March 10 that the war would end soon, before disruptions to energy supplies trigger major economic fallout.

Economists and market analysts have said that prolonged disruption of oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz could have significant impacts.

Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said in a keynote speech on March 9 that global economic resilience is being tested by the conflict in the Middle East and urged policymakers to “think of the unthinkable and prepare for it.”

Georgieva said that every persistent 10 percent jump in oil prices shaves 0.1–0.2 percent from global economic output and pushes inflation up by 40 basis points.