The world’s tankers are pointing at America.

With the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed and Middle Eastern producers shutting in wells because their storage tanks are full, global energy buyers are doing what markets always do when one supply source disappears: they are hunting for alternatives. And the largest alternative on the planet is the United States.

The Numbers

The EIA forecasts Brent crude to average $115 per barrel in the second quarter of 2026 — up from roughly $65 before the war. WTI is projected to average $87. The price spike is painful for consumers, but it is also a powerful market signal that is already redirecting American production toward buyers that need it most.

U.S. LNG export facilities are running at near-peak capacity — almost 18 billion cubic feet per day in March. Asian markets that normally receive LNG from Qatar through the Strait of Hormuz are now competing for American cargoes. Asian spot LNG prices have risen over 140 percent since the war began, making U.S. LNG economically compelling at virtually any freight rate.

On crude oil, U.S. exports to Asia are poised to surge in April as refineries there hunt for alternative suppliers to replace the Middle Eastern barrels they can no longer access. American shale — predominantly light, sweet crude — is not a perfect substitute for the heavier grades that Asian refineries were built to process, but it is available, and available is everything in a supply crisis.

The Structural Advantage

What makes the United States uniquely positioned in this crisis is not just what it produces — it is where it produces it.

American oil and LNG flows through Atlantic and Pacific export terminals that have no connection to the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea, or any other contested waterway. Texas crude can reach European ports. Gulf Coast LNG can reach Japanese terminals. Neither route depends on a passage that Iran can threaten.

This is what energy independence actually looks like in practice. Not a slogan on a campaign sign — a physical supply chain that routes around the world’s most dangerous chokepoints.

The Limits — And What to Do About Them

It would be dishonest to pretend America can fully fill the Hormuz gap. The disruption is estimated at 14 to 16 million barrels per day at its peak. U.S. production is 13.7 million barrels per day — and not all of it can be exported efficiently due to refinery constraints and export infrastructure limits.

American refineries face a structural mismatch: many were built decades ago to process heavier foreign crude, not the lighter shale oil that dominates U.S. production. Refinery capacity is actually shrinking in 2026, with closures in California and Texas reducing throughput at exactly the wrong moment.

The fixes are known: expand refinery permitting, accelerate LNG terminal construction, and reform the Jones Act to allow more flexibility in coastal shipping. These are not regulatory fantasies — they are decisions Congress can make right now.

The Conservative Case

Free markets work. American shale was not a government program — it was the product of private investment and technological ingenuity. The Trump administration’s job is to get out of the way, approve the permits, and let American energy do what it was always capable of doing.

That is the America First energy policy working as intended.