According to IEA, global demand is expected to rise to 86.8 million barrels a day this year, up from 85.8 million barrels last year. Analysts are revising the oil price forecasts, with some saying $140, and others $200, could be written on the tag for a barrel of crude in the future.

Although Iran is Opec’s second-largest exporter, production at the country’s leading oil and gasfields is believed to be falling by as much as 10 per cent annually because of a lack of investment and expertise.

Oil demand in Iran has also grown at 5 per cent annually for the past five years, the same rate as in China. Iran produces an estimated 4.2 million barrels per day (bbl/d) of total liquids, of which 3.8 million bbl/d is crude oil, equal to 5 percent of global production. Iran has 136 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, or roughly 10 percent of the world’s total proven petroleum reserves. The country has 40 producing fields, 27 onshore and 13 offshore, with the majority of crude oil reserves located in the southwestern Khuzestan region near the Iraqi border.

The macroeconomic implications of a successful Iranian bourse are noteworthy. If Iran’s oil bourse becomes a successful alternative for international oil trades, it would challenge the hegemony currently enjoyed by the financial centers in both London (IPE) and New York (NYMEX).

As the United States gears up for an attack on Iran, just exactly how much weight the oil factor carries in the administration’s decision-making is not something that we can determine with absolute assurance at this time, but given the importance energy has played in the careers and thinking of various high officials of this administration, and given Iran’s immense resources, it would be ludicrous not to take the oil factor into account.