Iran Offers to Reopen the Strait of Hormuz in Seven Days, and Washington Is Talking

Iran has offered the United States a deal that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days. Asked about the offer, a US official told the BBC that "constructive discussions" were taking place through mediators.

Ethiopia has been paying for the closure without being in the room

The Strait matters here because Ethiopia buys every litre of fuel it burns and lands almost all of it through Djibouti. A closed Hormuz does not cut that route, but it reprices it: crude moves further for less, freight and war-risk insurance go up on everything crossing the Red Sea corridor, and the cost arrives in Addis Abeba as a higher import bill paid in foreign currency the country does not have spare.

That is the context for the warning fact.et reported earlier this week, when JPMorgan put global oil inventories at their physical floor this month if the Strait stayed shut. A seven-day reopening, if it happens, resolves the tail risk that analysis was built around.

Two cautions. First, an offer is not an agreement — this is Tehran's proposal, relayed by a US official who described talks, not terms. Second, freight rates and insurance premiums tend to fall more slowly than they rise. Even a clean reopening would not return landed fuel costs to where they were on the day the Strait closed.

Open

Neither side has said what Iran wants in return, and no terms have been published. There is no timetable from Washington, no confirmation from Tehran of the seven-day figure beyond the offer itself, and no indication of which mediators are carrying the talks.

Sources: BBC News, 26 September 2026