Economist Henrietta Treyz momentarily stunned MS NOW’s Alex Witt into silence with her prediction about when gas prices could finally fall for Americans.
Witt had asked Treyz, the Veda Partners co-founder and director of economic policy, “realistically” how long it would take for prices to fall at the pumps if Donald Trump’s Iran war was, hypothetically, to end tomorrow.
Treyz predicted there wouldn’t be a regular flow of tankers through the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow channel off the coast of Iran through which one fifth of the world’s oil travels — until September.
“So my calculation is that, on the trajectory we’re at right now, we should be expecting $4.90 gas by the end of next week. We are on track to get to $5 or even above by Memorial Day,” she continued.
And even after that, Treyz said the 300% hike in insurance costs for insuring the tankers and “the reality that 80 of the largest refiners and energy producers on the earth have been bombed” would have to be taken into account.
It’ll be “years until those facilities are back up and running and we’re near anything with a $2 in front of it for gas,” she predicted.
Witt quipped: “Ohh, great timing with the summer driving season coming up.”
Then she asked Treyz: “So, you’re saying it’s how long until we get something with a 2 in front of it per gallon of gas? You’re saying years?”
“I’m saying years,” the economist affirmed. “September until we get back to anything with a regular flow and then you got to rebuild 80 facilities.”
“It’s gonna be years,” she repeated.
After a lengthy pause and a small shake of her head, Witt said: “Wow.”