War in Iran Is Already Reshaping East Asia's Energy Future
4/15/202637 min
The war in Iran has caused the price of all kinds of commodities to surge, and that has a negative economic impact almost everywhere. But the squeeze is really being felt hard in East Asia, which is the ultimate destination for a lot of oil and gas that come out of the Gulf. And though the Strait of Hormuz may eventually re-open, and the acute pain may pass, this episode may already be reshaping the future. On this episode of the podcast we speak with Alex Turnbull, an investor based in Singapore, and a researcher on energy topics with the Australian National University. He argues that the war will accelerate the region's appetite to restart nuclear power plants, ultimately lessening its dependence on imported natural gas. He also notes that per his channel checks, the region is already seeing a jump in demand for electric vehicles, with BYD dealers holding less and less inventory on hand.
Read more: US, Iran Seek More Ceasefire Talks as Blockade Stops Ships
There Are No Easy Exits From Iran for the US
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First 90 secondsAlex Turnbull· Guest0:00
[gentle music] Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts, Radio, News.
Joe Weisenthal· Host0:07
[upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.
Tracy Alloway· Host0:22
And I'm Tracy Alloway.
Joe Weisenthal· Host0:24
Uh, Tracy, it's April 9th, uh, 9:05 AM. There's a ceasefire-ish. It's sort of... There has been something announced that's called a ceasefire. There does not seem to actually have been much of a cessation of fire per se. Maybe it's slowed down a little bit. Some of the headlines this morning are about Israel continuing to strike hard in Lebanon, Iran saying that, "Well, if there's no ceasefire in Lebanon, there's no ceasefire at all." But, you know, overall, at least as of right now, you know, the market, et cetera, we saw that huge drop in oil Tuesday night. You know, the market's still sort of, still sort of buoyant, right? Still sort of resilient.
Tracy Alloway· Host1:06
Well, I think the important thing for the purposes of this particular discussion is if you take a look at what's going on in the Strait of Hormuz- Yeah ... it still seems to be shut- Right ... more or less. Um, and shout-out to the Bloomberg function, uh, you can Hormuz go. You can see the number of ships that are going through that particular choke point, and I have two as of today, which is basically nothing.
Joe Weisenthal· Host1:29
Basically