Iran May Adopt ‘Low-Level’ Tactics Supporting Oil, S&P Says

Iran may respond to sanctions with “low-level provocation” such as slowing shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, supporting oil prices, Standard & Poor’s said.

The Islamic Republic could disrupt supplies from the Persian Gulf by imposing tanker inspections or boarding merchant ships in its territorial waters, encouraging markets to view armed conflict increasingly as “a real, if remote, possibility,” Paris-based Jean-Michel Six, S&P’s chief economist for Europe, wrote in one of three reports from the ratings company.