Wright: full mine clearance not needed to reopen Hormuz

Investing.com -- Not all mines placed by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz need to be removed for ships to resume transiting the vital passageway, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Tuesday.

"You just need a pathway for ships to be moved in and out," Wright said in an interview on the sidelines of the Three Seas Summit and Business Forum in Dubrovnik. "I think that can happen quickly."

Iran has said it laid mines along the most frequently used routes of the narrow waterway, through which roughly one-fifth of the world's oil and gas transited before the US and Israel launched a war on the Islamic Republic. The strait has been effectively closed since late February, leading to massive supply disruptions and spiking prices of oil and products such as diesel and gasoline.

Fully clearing the strait of mines could take six months, a senior US Defense Department official said during a classified Congressional briefing last week, the Washington Post reported.

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