WASHINGTON — Sen. Chris Murphy said U.S. energy companies are “making an enormous profit” off the Iran war, and that a Democratic Congress “should do something about it.”
The Connecticut Democrat posted the line on X on Oct. 4, with a video he said was filmed after a meeting at Qatar Energy. “Something I’ve heard about during my trip to the Gulf? War profiteering. Often by U.S. companies,” the post reads. His Senate office had no release on the meeting when he posted.
They’re getting the benefit of CENTCOM, the American military, providing the security for the transit out of the strait, but are still charging enormous fees and making money.
He said Qatar Energy used to get “about 10 ships out every day” and is “now getting only one ship out.” He said trading companies are “bringing ships in” and “jacking up the price to Qatar Energy” because of “wartime conditions.” He named one firm. “One of the companies that is doing this is a company called Vitol, which is a company that’s put a lot of money into Trump’s pocket,” he said. He did not cite a contract, a fee, or a filing. The video does not include a Qatar Energy official or a Vitol statement.
An April 7 Energy Information Administration outlook is the agency’s account of the waterway, and it is older than his trip. It said oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz were limited, and that Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Bahrain collectively shut in 7.5 million barrels a day of crude production in March. It said reduced LNG flows through the strait had cut global supply and widened the gap between the U.S. Henry Hub price and European and Asian import prices. It assumed the conflict would not persist past April. It does not count Qatari LNG ships per day, and it does not name a trader.
The security half of his sentence is a mission the command has described in other terms. A July 13 CENTCOM release says forces resumed a blockade of traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports on July 14, and that “the U.S. military continues to support traffic flow through regional waters for all vessels not violating the blockade.” A Sept. 24 Military Sealift Command story says Navy reservists on Naval Forces Central Command’s shipping team have been “supporting commercial vessel transits through the Strait of Hormuz.” Neither page names a fee.
The profit half is his account of the meeting. He said prices are “going up for ordinary consumers” while “the profits are also going up for energy companies, some of these energy companies tied to President Trump.” He said it was “a story I don’t think you’d understand unless you were here on the ground.”
His post says a Democratic Congress should act. It does not name a bill, a hearing, or a subpoena. He sits on Foreign Relations and is the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee that handles homeland security. The Oct. 4 post does not say he has sent the ship count or the fee claim to either committee.
The meeting, the drop from 10 ships to one, the wartime fees, and the Vitol line are what he says he learned in Qatar. The April outlook is the agency’s Hormuz account, under an assumption the fighting would have ended. The blockade and the escort mission are in the command’s releases. The profit figure is in the video.