Trump keeps talking about the <x0 oil that explodes”, what he's talking about

Or maybe the other way around: Iran could be the one facing a “bomb with clocks” in its own oil wells! With only a few days before they are destroyed. So says Trump, who does not seem to be able to stop talking about oil explosions.

There's a bit of truth in what Trump is saying, although it wouldn't happen in the way he describes it and certainly not within the short term he mentioned.

Shortly after Iran virtually closed the Hormuz Strait for foreign tankers, local power producers ran out of countries to store oil and collected gas. Many wells in neighboring Middle Eastern countries were forced to stop (the industry uses the term: “shut in”).

Iran too was forced to stop its wells this month after the United States began its strait blockade.

Stopping wells is not like turning off a light switch. It represents a complex engineering challenge involving serious physics and careful planning over several days or even weeks.

When oil wells stop, pressure underground can become unbalanced, distorting the underground structure. These changes can harm reservoirs, which can create similar problems for wells nearby. Water can penetrate, lowering the well's production potential.

And, yes, in rare cases, explosions can also occur.

But serious damage leaves an explosion no longer likely to happen, oil industry analysts agree. Wells have been stopped for long periods, including in Iran, before.

What did Trump say?

April 23, Oval Office:

“If they fail to move their oil, their entire oil infrastructure will explode. You know what that means? Because they have no place to store it, and because they have nowhere to store it, if they have to stop it... there's something under the ground that basically leaves it in a very bad condition and doesn't get better. ”

April 26, Fox News:

When you have, you know, lines of large quantities of oil flowing through your system, if for whatever reason that line is closed because you can't keep putting it into deposits or ships, which happened to them (they don't have ships because of the blockade), what happens is that line explodes from inside, both mechanically and on earth. ”

May 4th, Hughes Hewitt Show:

You know, their oil, when it stops oil, under the ground, also mechanically, but under the ground there tends to be almost 100% of cases, literally explode and destroy everything around it. And you can never get that oil again. ”