TEHRAN – When Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber took the screen at CERAWeek in Houston on March 23, 2026, he chose his words carefully. The Managing Director and Group CEO of ADNOC, speaking by video link because war had closed the skies, called any disruption of the Strait of Hormuz “weaponizing” energy and “economic terrorism against every nation.”
He warned that “twenty-one miles wide, twenty million barrels a day” was now squeezed, that oil prices had already risen by 50 percent, and that “no country should be allowed to hold Hormuz hostage. Not now. Not ever.” He invited American capital into ADNOC, XRG and AI ventures, and promised ADIPEC in November as proof that the UAE could keep energy flowing.
Eight months later, that Houston speech reads less as analysis and more as confession. The UAE was not describing a crisis. It was announcing its role in it.
From the first bombs, the war moved to Hormuz
From the first hours of the American-Israeli war against Iran on February 28, 2026, it was clear the fate of this war would be decided not in the air over Tehran or Isfahan, but in the waters of the Persian Gulf. Its focal point was inevitable: the Strait of Hormuz.