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MABUX ARA LNG Bunker Index
Port LNG$/mton MGO LS$/mton Date
ARA
1 161.00
+1.00
1 220.00
-10.00
Jul 27
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Port	LNG$/mton	MGO LS$/mton	Date
ARA	1 161.00	+1.00	1 220.00	-10.00	Jul 27

MABUX Global Bunker Index

380HSFO$/mton		VLS FO$/mton		MGO LS$/mton		Date
637.97	-16.25	798.45	-10.84	1 301.60	-10.46	Jul 28

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MABUX Market Differential Index (MDI)

Correlation between market bunker prices (MBP) and MABUX Digital Bunker Price Benchmark (DBP)

All Indexes in $/mton	380HSFO			VLS FO			MGO LS			Date
All Indexes in $/mton	MBP Index	DBP Index	MDI	MBP Index	DBP Index	MDI	MBP Index	DBP Index	MDI	Date
Rotterdam	530	621	-91	660	694	-34	1 220	1 384	-164	Jul 28
Singapore	583	645	-62	820	784	+36	1 200	1 377	-177	Jul 28
Fujairah	597	594	+3	790	725	+65	1 355	1 440	-85	Jul 28
Houston	520	616	-96	723	712	+11	1 203	1 307	-104	Jul 28

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- 2026-07-28
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- 2026-07-28
  Rotterdam posts continuing dip in fossil bunker sales
  The Port of Rotterdam has reported fossil bunker fuel sales of 1,636,483 metric tonnes (mt) for the second quarter (Q2) of 2026, which was down both on the 1,685,991 mt sold in Q1 of this year and even more significantly on the 2,321,429 mt sold in Q2... Read more
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- 2026-07-28
  Oil prices fall 1% as investors weigh pause in US strikes on Iran
  Oil prices fell 1% on Tuesday as market participants continued to weigh a pause in U.S. strikes on Iran, which has raised hope of a diplomatic solution to their conflict and the normalisation of Middle East energy flows. Brent crude futures were down... Read more Oil prices fell 1% on Tuesday as market participants continued to weigh a pause in U.S. strikes on Iran, which has raised hope of a diplomatic solution to their conflict and the normalisation of Middle East energy flows.
  
  Brent crude futures were down $0.54, or 0.6%, at $87.82 by 0046 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was at $81.95 a barrel, down $0.66, or 0.8%.
  
  Both contracts fell 1% earlier in the session to their lowest level in more than a week.
  
  U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday the United States was having "good talks" with Iran and that there was a chance of a resolution. However, he said U.S. strikes would resume if negotiations failed while Iran issued similar comments about retaliation.
  
  "For now, the relief that an off-ramp has been found has taken the heat out of prices and eased concerns around Houthi attacks on Saudi infrastructure. However, the situation remains highly fluid," IG analyst Tony Sycamore said in a client note.
  
  Afrah al-Zouba, the foreign minister-designate of Yemen’s internationally recognised Saudi-backed government, said Yemen-based Houthi fighters aimed to replicate Iran’s control of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz at Bab el-Mandeb.
  
  "Whether the Houthis have the military capacity to enforce a comprehensive blockade is questionable, especially given that the Saudis will attack them relentlessly. Still, there is no doubt that traffic has dropped off significantly in the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz," said Marex analyst Edward Meir.
  
  "A key reason prices are not even higher than they are right now is the demand destruction that is taking place, especially in Asia," Meir said.
  
  Barclays analysts said in a note on Monday "flows through the strait remain subdued". They said, in the week ended July 24, crude oil and refined product net exports through the strait averaged 2.9 million barrels a day compared with 5.9 million in the previous week.
  
  Elsewhere, U.S. crude oil stockpiles likely fell last week alongside gasoline, while distillate stocks likely rose, a preliminary Reuters poll showed on Monday. [EIA/S] Source: Reuters/Investing.com
- 2026-07-28
  The U.S. Is Walking Into Iran’s Escalation Trap
  “I feel like a jackass caught in a Texas hailstorm -- I can’t run, I can’t hide and I can’t make it stop.” U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s desperate comment to aide, Bill Moyers, came after a massive and sustained aerial bombing campaign in North Vietnam... Read more “I feel like a jackass caught in a Texas hailstorm -- I can’t run, I can’t hide and I can’t make it stop.” U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s desperate comment to aide, Bill Moyers, came after a massive and sustained aerial bombing campaign in North Vietnam -- codenamed ‘Operation Rolling Thunder’ -- had failed in its aim of pressuring the North Vietnamese leadership into peace talks to end the spiralling conflict that became the 19-year Vietnam War. Shortly after, on 8 March 1965, following advice from his military advisers, Johnson authorised the deployment of 3,500 U.S. combat troops on the ground in South Vietnam with the explicit mission of protecting the air base the Americans were using for the bombing raids they were conducting against North Vietnam -- the first use of regular American soldiers in the country, over and above the military advisers that were already operating there. By the end of that year, nearly 200,000 U.S. troops were committed in-country, highlighting the truth behind Johnson’s earlier comment to his National Security Advisor, McGeorge Bundy: “It’s damn easy to get into a war, but it’s going to be awful hard to ever extricate yourself if you get in.” The military advice had been that it is impossible to win a war with air power alone, which is true -- not a single war has been won in such a fashion. Over 60 years on, and five months after the onset of current U.S. President Donald Trump’s ‘Operation Epic Fury’ aerial bombing campaign, senior security sources in Washington and London have told OilPrice.com that he faces the same dilemma as Johnson. “It’s pretty clear now that Iran won’t capitulate militarily, and they won’t give an inch on getting everything they asked for [in the 14-point memorandum of understanding for peace], because they see anything other than a surrender as a victory,” one senior Washington-based source who works closely with the U.S. Treasury exclusively told OilPrice.com last week. “So, Trump’s options are extremely limited now,” he underlined.
  
  The most immediate problem Trump is the effective closure of the world’s key energy transit route, the Strait of Hormuz, through which up to 30% of the globe’s oil has historically been shipped and around 10% of its liquefied natural gas (LNG). Regardless of the optimistic soundbites from the White House and US Central Command (CENTCOM) that the waterway “remains open” and encouragement for ships to use a supposedly U.S.-secured southern corridor, the reality is that global shipping firms see the Strait as a lethal gamble. As analysed by OilPrice.com, meaningful workarounds for moving oil through other routes are at least two years away, and the short-term measures to keep oil prices more subdued than they would otherwise be are running out fast. Astonishingly, according to a London-based senior energy security source who works closely with the U.S. administration, Trump’s political advisers downplayed the likelihood of Tehran closing the Strait of Hormuz if attacked. His military advisers did, though, highlighting Iran’s response in 1983 during the peak of the Iran-Iraq War after France supplied Iraq with advanced Super Étendard fighter jets and Exocet anti-ship missiles, giving Iraq the capability to heavily target Iran's primary oil export infrastructure at Kharg Island. At that time, Iran’s government declared that if Iraqi attacks crippled its ability to sell oil, it would retaliate by cutting off the global energy supply. Then-President Ali Khamenei backed up the government’s warning, saying that if Iran’s oil exports were cut to zero: “The Persian Gulf will be closed altogether, and no one will be allowed to export oil from this region.”
  
  As disastrous as the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz already is, it is set to become much worse. The Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen last week announced a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabian ports and ships using the Bab el-Mandeb strait at the entrance to the Red Sea after claiming that the Kingdom targeted civilian infrastructure alongside the military targets struck by Riyadh in Hodeida and Kamaran island. This 16-mile-wide waterway flows between the west coast of Yemen on the one side, and the east coasts initially of Djibouti and then of Eritrea on the other, before it joins the Red Sea, and historically has seen up to 12% of total global seaborne-traded oil flow through it and roughly 8% of the world’s LNG. Although Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdusalam stated that there is no closure of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait for the global fleet, the notion of a selective blockade on it is just an illusion. In reality, the Houthis could easily close the entire Strait overnight by ‘accidentally’ sinking a single VLCC due to the ‘misidentification’ of a vessel, a ' malfunctioning’ drone or missile, or a ‘drifting’ sea mine, among the many explanatory options open to them. Moreover, even without these, the blockading of Saudi Arabia’s record 4 million barrels per day of crude oil that it was exporting through the East-West pipeline straight to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, using the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, has cut off this escape hatch for it from the blockaded Strait of Hormuz. The implication for vessels from other countries is clear, which is why many commercial ships immediately aborted their transits through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and reversed course, and why the oil price spiked again through US$100 per barrel at that point.
  
  “It’s difficult to believe that Iran’s not behind this [the Houthi actions against Saudi ports and ships] as a means to drawing the U.S. further into the conflict,” said the London-based source last week. “They know how important oil prices are to Trump, and they have been angling to get him to commit troops on the ground from day one of the conflict, and that’s why it’s so difficult for him to just walk away,” he added. More specifically, the importance to Trump of further rises in the global oil price is twofold -- one economic reason and one political one, although the two are interlinked. As analysed in full in my latest book on the new global oil market order, historical data shows that every US$10 per barrel or so change in the price of crude oil results in around a 25-30 cent change in the price of a gallon of gasoline. And for every 1 cent that the average price per gallon of gasoline rises, more than US$1 billion or so per year in consumer spending is lost, so damaging the economy. The political importance of this is that since 1896, the sitting U.S. president and his party have won re-election 11 times out of 11 if the economy was not in recession within two years of an upcoming election. However, sitting U.S. presidents who went into a re-election campaign with the economy in recession won only once out of seven occasions. The same pattern pertains to mid-term elections too, and although Trump cannot seek re-election, he will not only want to avoid being a lame duck figure in his last two and a half years but may also envision a Trump political dynasty that will require the goodwill of the Republican Party.
  
  Previous wargaming discussions in the Pentagon over Iran involving Trump apparently focused on ‘limited landings’ of U.S. troops in key coastal areas in and around the Strait of Hormuz to secure unimpeded transit for vessels through that waterway, according to the Washington- and London-based sources exclusively spoken to by OilPrice.com. However, as President Johnson found back in 1965 -- and countless other leaders have discovered before and after that -- there are three distinct problems in doing so. The first, as the French found in ?i?n Biên Ph? in its own Vietnam adventure in 1954, was that a standing foreign force in a foreign country -- regardless of size -- is easy prey for the resident forces across a country to destroy via a siege bombing campaign. Of the near-11,00 troops in place before the perpetual bombardment for 56 days from North Vietnamese forces began, around a third were killed, with the remainder being captured after the French surrender. It has since become the military gold standard of ‘enclave theory’ catastrophe and the limitations again of air power. The second problem is that limited troop numbers rarely stay that way because -- even before the dramatic reduction of the ‘safe rear’ part of a military position by the extension of the lethal front line by drone technology -- more troops would eventually be required to protect the operating positions established by initial troop landings. And the final problem is that such manoeuvres are often expected by the indigenous enemy. This is certainly the case with Iran, with the Commander-in-Chief of the Iranian Army, Major General Amir Hatami, saying in early April that: “In the event the enemy attempts a ground operation, no one should survive.” Source: Oilprice.com
- 2026-07-28
  MABUX: Global bunker market to extend downward correction on Jul. 28 amid signs of Middle East de-escalation.
  The MABUX World Bunker Index — a composite benchmark reflecting daily prices for 380 HSFO, VLSFO, and MGO — declined on Jul. 27, ending a five-session streak of gains: 380 HSFO: USD/MT: 654.22 (-13.23) VLSFO: USD/MT: 809.29 (-10.38) MGO: USD/MT:... Read more The MABUX World Bunker Index — a composite benchmark reflecting daily prices for 380 HSFO, VLSFO, and MGO — declined on Jul. 27, ending a five-session streak of gains:
  
  380 HSFO: USD/MT: 654.22 (-13.23)
  VLSFO: USD/MT: 809.29 (-10.38)
  MGO: USD/MT: 1 312.06 (-15.65)
  
  As of Jul. 27, the MABUX Market Differential Index (MDI), which measures the spread between Market Bunker Prices (MBP) and the MABUX Digital Bunker Benchmark (DBP), showed the following trends across the four major global bunkering hubs—Rotterdam, Singapore, Fujairah, and Houston:
  
  • HSFO segment: All four ports remained undervalued. The MDI widened by $7 in Rotterdam, was unchanged in Singapore, and narrowed by $21 in Fujairah and $9 in Houston. Rotterdam and Houston continued to post MDI values above the $100 threshold.
  
  • VLSFO segment: Fujairah remained the only overvalued port, with its premium widening by $32. The other three hubs stayed undervalued, although discount levels narrowed by $1 in Rotterdam, $13 in Singapore and $13 in Houston.
  
  • MGO LS segment: All four ports remained undervalued. Discount margins narrowed by $21 in Rotterdam, $48 in Singapore, $53 in Fujairah and $40 in Houston. MDI values in Rotterdam, Singapore and Houston remained well above the $100 threshold, while Fujairah moved closer to the 100% correlation level between MBP and DBP.
  
  MABUX expects the Global bunker marker to extend its downward correction on Jul. 28, supported by easing geopolitical risk following signs of de-escalation in the Middle East: 380 HSFO: minus 10-20 USD/MT, VLSFO: minus 10–20 USD/MT, MGO LS: minus 5–20 USD/MT.
  Source: MABUX
- 2026-07-28
  The Trade Routes Iran Cannot Afford to Lose
  The future of relations between Central Asian republics (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) and Iran under a government now dominated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is likely to feature pragmatic economic and... Read more The future of relations between Central Asian republics (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) and Iran under a government now dominated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is likely to feature pragmatic economic and transit cooperation amid heightened caution, with short-term disruptions from the 2026 conflict and longer-term continuity driven by mutual interests in connectivity and multipolarity.
  
  Iran's Shift to IRGC Leadership (as of mid-2026)
  
  Following the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his family on 28 February 2026 by U.S./Israeli forces, his son Mojtaba Khamenei assumed the leadership role with strong IRGC backing. The Pasdaran - particularly under figures like its commander Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi - has emerged as the dominant force in Tehran. It controls key military decisions, influences negotiations, and may sideline civilian leaders like President Masoud Pezeshkian. (Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of Parliament, are Guards veterans.)
  
  The IRGC operates as a "state-within-a-state," prioritizing hardline, ideological, and asymmetric approaches (e.g., regional allies, sanctions evasion) and may control 50% of Iran’s economy. This contrasts with more pragmatic civilian or reformist tendencies but builds on Iran's 2005 “Look East” policy that aimed at fostering stronger political, economic, and strategic connections with Asia.
  
  Pre-2026 Relations: Strengthening Pragmatic Ties
  
  Before the war, relations with Central Asia were on an upward trajectory, driven by economics rather than ideology:
  
  Trade growth: Bilateral trade rose steadily. Tajikistan's trade with Iran quadrupled in recent years (reaching hundreds of millions). Kazakhstan targeted $3 billion turnover, mostly agricultural products. Uzbekistan saw investment roadmaps and port deals. Turkmenistan focused on gas swaps and pipelines.
  Connectivity: The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) and Iranian ports (e.g., Chabahar, Bandar Abbas) offered Central Asia vital access to the Indian Ocean and beyond, bypassing or complementing European/Russian/Chinese/Afghan routes. A Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU)-Iran free trade agreement took effect in May 2025, with potential to dramatically expand trade volumes.
  Differentiated ties: Tajikistan benefited from Persian cultural/linguistic affinity. Others emphasized practical transit, energy, and investment. Iran positioned itself as a partner for sanctions circumvention and multipolar balancing (against excessive Russian or Western influence).
  
  Central Asian states pursued multi-vector policies, engaging Iran alongside Russia (EAEU), China (Belt and Road Initiative), Turkey, Europe, and the U.S. Iran avoided policies that might destabilize the region to maintain good relations with Moscow and Beijing and to avoid a stronger U.S. presence.
  
  Immediate Impacts of the 2026 Conflict
  
  The war introduced significant short-term strains:
  
  Economic disruptions: Iran imposed a ban on food exports in March 2026, hitting importers like Tajikistan. Strait of Hormuz tensions and broader instability raised costs and halted some trade flows.
  Central Asian reactions: Mostly official neutrality and calls for restraint, but no unified position. Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan sent humanitarian aid to Iran. There was no alignment against Iran, but diversification accelerated as Central Asia explored alternatives to reduce reliance on Iranian routes.
  IRGC-Specific Implications for Central Asia
  
  The IRGC has historically managed influence in the Khorasan region (bordering Turkmenistan) through intelligence networks, cultural outreach, and limited economic levers. Unlike its heavy role in the Middle East ("Axis of Resistance"), its Central Asia approach has been more restrained and pragmatic, focusing on trade, transit, and soft power to avoid provoking major powers.
  
  Specific outcomes:
  
  Central Asia still needs Iran as a southern outlet. As the republics are landlocked, Iran offers the shortest route to the Indian Ocean through ports such as Bandar Abbas and Chabahar Port (Plan A). However, despite tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan work continues on the rail corridor to link Central Asia with Pakistan’s sea ports (Plan B). The war demonstrated how dependent regional trade had become on Iranian transport corridors. Rail links, Caspian shipping, and the International North–South Transport Corridor were all disrupted, hurting the region, but that experience may encourage the republics to restore Iranian routes as quickly as possible, invest in making them more resilient, and diversify rather than abandon them.
  Post-war reconstruction creates opportunities. If sanctions ease even partially and reconstruction begins, Central Asian countries could benefit by supplying grain, construction materials, metals, engineering services, electricity, and transport and logistics to Iran, a market of ninety-three million people. Iran, in turn, would resume exports of metals and minerals, petrochemicals, and food products to Central Asia. The extent of this recovery will depend heavily on sanctions policy and investor confidence.
  Uzbekistan may become one of Iran's closest partners. Uzbekistan has consistently pursued a pragmatic foreign policy based on economic connectivity rather than ideology, and its president and prime minister have regularly met Iran’s leaders. (The countries’ foreign ministers met in late July.) Its priorities include expanding rail access to the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, increasing regional trade, and strengthening east-west and north-south transport links. Those goals fit naturally with renewed cooperation with Tehran. Tashkent has diplomatic relations with Iran and Israel, but it does not want to become a platform for attacks on Iran.
  Kazakhstan has strong incentives to restore trade. Kazakhstan had significantly expanded agricultural exports through Iranian ports before the war. The presidents of Kazakhstan and Iran have met and Astana sent a delegation to Iran to Khamenei’s funeral. Although some projects were no doubt suspended during the conflict, Kazakhstan still has compelling reasons to restore commercial ties because Iranian routes reduce dependence on northern corridors through Russia and provide access to South Asian markets. Astana, also friendly with Tel Aviv and Tehran, likewise wants to avoid becoming an enabler of attacks on Iran.
  Turkmenistan's importance would increase. Turkmenistan shares an 1,100 km border with Iran and is the principal overland connection between Iran and Central Asia, a key to which is the Sarakhs border crossing. Potential areas of cooperation include electricity, natural gas swaps, rail transit, and border trade. Turkmenistan has a state policy of permanent neutrality, making it well positioned to expand practical cooperation without becoming involved in broader geopolitical rivalries.
  The Trump administration will subordinate the republics’ economic health to its war on Iran, even though Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan joined Trump’s Board of Peace as an insurance policy. Washington may pressure the republics to forego opportunities in Iran without compensation, other than a mash note from the American ambassador. And the U.S. is prepared to attack the infrastructure the republics will use for trade: In July, the U.S. attacked the Aq Tekeh Khan railway bridge in Iran’s Golestan Province, part of a strategic rail corridor linking China, Turkmenistan, and Iran and part of China’s BRI. The U.S. also attacked Iran’s Chabahar port and damaged the maritime traffic control tower and bombed bridges around Bandar Abbas port. And Trump has threatened wider attacks on bridges and power plants to compel Iran to return to negotiations.
  With the IRGC ascendent, there is the potential for more ideological assertiveness or deployment of allied groups, raising alarms in secular Central Asian capitals. However, economic pragmatism will likely persist as the IRGC benefits from stable revenue, sanctions-evasion channels, local markets, and quiet borders. However, heightened militarization or confrontation could spill over borders (e.g., via allies or instability), prompting Central Asian hedging toward Turkey, the West, or deeper Russia/China ties.
  
  The republics do not want the region to become a contested space as the U.S. tries to destabilize Iran to choke off China’s export and import links through Eurasia. After the violence and stagnation of the Soviet period, and the disruption of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, the republics’ desire is to replace rivalry with trade and development.
  
  Iran may value a new overland trade route after the weakening of its allies Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Assad regime. The interest was strengthened after the U.S. blockade, and it may seek links through the Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan joint fleet in the Caspian Sea (Iran has a 740-kilometer Caspian coastline), the Middle Corridor, and the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway (which is in the active construction phase).
  
  In the future
  
  Relations are resilient due to geography and shared interests but will be more transactional and cautious:
  
  Short-term (next 1–2 years): Trade and transit volumes may remain suppressed or diverted due to conflict aftermath. Central Asia will accelerate diversification (alternative corridors, closer engagement with Turkey or the West) but will not abandon Iran connectivity options. Tajikistan may keep the closest cultural links but with security buffers. Overall tone: businesslike but not hostile.
  Medium to long-term, assuming an end to hostilities: Strong rebound potential in economic and connectivity cooperation. INSTC and Iran’s ports align with Central Asia's need for southern access and Iran's need for outlets. The EAEU free trade agreement framework provides institutional momentum. Shared concern about Trump’s scattershot policy announcements could foster quiet alignment via the Shanghai Cooperation Organization or BRICS.
  Key variables: Duration and outcome of the war. IRGC internal consolidation vs. moderating pressures. Central Asian leaders' balancing policies (Russia/China remain primary partners). Global sanctions dynamics.
  Bottom line: Iran and the republics will focus on pragmatic, interest-based ties rather than ideology or deep alliances. IRGC-led Iran will prioritize survival and connectivity over revolutionary fervor in Central Asia to calm Iran’s eastern flank. Multi-vector foreign policies in Central Asia aim to ensure no single power (including a more assertive Iran and a mercurial Trump administration) determines the republics’ futures. Source: Oilprice.com
- 2026-07-28
  Temporary Calm in Iran Conflict Masks Risk of Broader Middle East War
  Tehran said it had halted retaliatory attacks against US allies in the Middle East as Washington refrained from attacking Iran for the second night in a row. A top military official in Tehran, meanwhile, threatened to widen Iran’s attacks across the... Read more Tehran said it had halted retaliatory attacks against US allies in the Middle East as Washington refrained from attacking Iran for the second night in a row.
  
  A top military official in Tehran, meanwhile, threatened to widen Iran’s attacks across the region, suggesting that Iran-allied Houthi rebels in Yemen could step up attacks on Red Sea shipping traffic.
  
  The overnight lull in attacks on July 26 came two days ahead of a key meeting scheduled in Washington between President Donald Trump and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu.
  
  That July 28 visit falls exactly five months since US and Israeli forces launched a wide campaign of air strikes on Iranian targets.
  
  Iran has pushed back, attacking US allies in the Middle East and essentially closing the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint waterway through which a massive amount of oil and gas normally passes en route to global markets.
  
  In past weeks, Washington declared a partial cease-fire, though prior to July 24, there were nearly two weeks of consecutive US bombardments of Iranian targets.
  
  The lull in US attacks was a result of a decision to let behind-the-scene peace talks take place, said Mike Waltz, US ambassador to the United Nations.
  
  Trump "is keeping all options on the table," Waltz said in an interview with NBC News. "What the president is doing right now, as we've seen all along, is giving the talks some space. Talks are ongoing. They're happening at every level from the more technical aspect of it, all the way to the highest levels of course."
  
  But the lull has also been partly motivated by dwindling US stockpiles for interceptors to shoot down Iranian missiles, which has worried US military planners, according to The New York Times.
  
  Vice President JD Vance and General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both raised concerns about escalation at a White House meeting, CNN reported.
  
  US administration officials insist that its forces remain well-equipped, though Waltz appeared to suggest that indeed some weapons stockpiles had been depleted, partly as a result of the US supplying weaponry to Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
  
  He also laid blame on the administration of Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden.
  
  "A lot of stockpiles were depleted not only from what we gave Ukraine over the last however many years, four or five years," he said in the NBC interview broadcast on July 26.
  
  The Pentagon "inherited a depleted situation from not only Ukraine but also the ongoing fight with the Houthis under the Biden administration and the depleted military under the Biden administration," he said.
  
  There was no immediate reaction to Waltz's comments from former Biden administration officials.
  
  A spokesman for Iran's military warned on July 26 that the war would widen even further if the US chose to restart its attacks.
  
  "These attacks continued until two nights ago, but over the past two nights the Americans have stopped their attacks," army spokesman Mohammad Akraminia was quoted by Iran's semiofficial Mehr news agency as saying.
  
  "Since... our strategy has essentially been retaliatory, we have also halted our retaliatory operations,” he said.
  
  Speaking at the White House on July 26, Trump said he had not decided whether to return to an all-out operation. He also said Iran faced a choice between a deal and strikes at a "much higher level.”
  
  In addition to concerns about US weapons stockpiles, growing misgivings among US voters could also be weighing on White House war plans. Polls show the Iran war is widely unpopular, which may become a major issue for Trump’s Republican Party in upcoming congressional elections in November.
  
  Houthi rebels in Yemen said they had downed a drone launched by US-allied Saudi Arabia -- the latest in a series of small-scale confrontations that have fueled fears that the Iran conflict could widen further across the region.
  
  In recent days, the Houthis also claimed attacks on Saudi oil facilities.
  
  Iran's military stopped six vessels attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz over the previous 24 hours, state television reported July 26.
  
  Tehran said it had made progress in talks with Oman -- which borders the narrowest part of the strait -- on "common principles and operational mechanisms" for shipping.
  
  Oman and Iran said they would discuss imposing service fees, a move Washington opposes. Source: Oilprice.com

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