Qatar's Energy Minister Saad al-Kaabi has rejected US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's claim that the Strait of Hormuz will become strategically irrelevant within two years. Al-Kaabi warns that any disruption to the waterway could send oil prices to $150 a barrel, a stake sharpened by Qatar having no overland pipeline alternative for its liquefied natural gas exports.
On September 1, Scott Bessent told Fox Business the Strait of Hormuz would become irrelevant within two years, saying, according to Crypto Briefing: "a worthless piece of water". Al-Kaabi has a different view, and his rebuttal carries a specific warning: any geopolitical disruption to operations in the strait could send oil prices surging to $150 per barrel.
Why the strait still matters
Roughly 34% of the world's crude oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz in 2025, according to the IEA, making it the single most important chokepoint in global energy markets. Bessent's case rests on pipeline capacity expansions by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Iraq that he expects to reroute enough oil volume by 2027 to strip the strait of its strategic weight. Al-Kaabi made a similar case for the strait's importance back in May 2026, and his latest comments escalate that position further.
Qatar's LNG exposure
Qatar is one of the world's largest liquefied natural gas exporters and has no overland pipeline alternative for those shipments, so every tanker carrying Qatari gas to Asian and European buyers must transit the strait. That leaves Doha with a direct stake in whether the waterway keeps its strategic weight.
Why analysts doubt a quick bypass
Existing bypass routes cover only a fraction of the strait's daily flow. Saudi Arabia's East-West Pipeline, which moves crude oil to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, has existed in various forms since the 1980s. The UAE's Habshan-Fujairah pipeline, completed in 2012, routes some Abu Dhabi crude to Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman. Scaling either network toward the strait's full volume would take tens of billions of dollars and years of construction. Iraq's proposed expansions face transit routes that have historically been vulnerable to sabotage.
LNG poses a separate problem: it requires liquefaction terminals at the point of origin and regasification facilities at the destination, so no pipeline under discussion replaces Qatar's maritime shipping dependency.
The backdrop
Bessent's comments arrive as US-Iran tensions escalate: Washington has tightened sanctions on Iranian oil exports, while Tehran has periodically signaled its ability to threaten shipping in the Gulf. Al-Kaabi's rebuttal reinforces the case for diplomatic caution around that geopolitical risk, and it comes as Qatar expands its North Field production, adding to the LNG volume that will keep flowing through the strait in the years ahead.
Al-Kaabi's $150 warning gives traders the more concrete signal: at least one major producing nation still treats the strait as impossible to route around in the near term.
Source: Crypto Briefing
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