Aya Batraoui

speaker

78 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Sep 2026 last heard 4d ago

Aya Batraoui’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 2.

Appearances

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Up First from NPR · Fed Raises Interest Rates, Iran War and Oil Prices, EU-Canada Alliance · 17 Sep 2026 podcast

Good morning, Michelle. voice-verified

Yeah, so this spike in prices is leading to protests in Syria, the Philippines, Indonesia, and other countries. voice-verified

You also have Bangladesh rationing electricity with frequent power cuts there. voice-verified

And this latest war in Yemen and the attacks on Saudi energy from that just adds to the existing pressure on oil markets where prices are way up. voice-verified

Diesel has already hit a record high in the U.S., and that means higher costs for trucking and farming. voice-verified

Brent crude has been trading about $105 a barrel. voice-verified

That's up some 50% from before the war with Iran. voice-verified

So you have all these various pressures now on refineries across the Gulf from attacks on their infrastructure from the U.S. voice-verified

war in Iran to continued attacks on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. voice-verified

And we know that countries are drawing from their strategic oil reserves to try to plug the gap. voice-verified

Yeah, Michelle, I mean, let's just look at the numbers, right? voice-verified

Data from OPEC shows Saudi Arabia's oil output fell to around 6.2 million barrels a day last month. voice-verified

Now compare that to nearly 11 million barrels a day before the U.S. voice-verified

war with Iran. voice-verified

And the Saudis are now facing these two chokeholds, one in the Strait of Hormuz, and since July, a blockade on their ships by the Houthis through Bab al-Manda. voice-verified

That is the other key shipping strait through the Red Sea. voice-verified

Now, the Saudis were using the Red Sea for months now to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. voice-verified

But because of those Houthi attacks on Saudi ships, the kingdom is now taking a much longer and more expensive route that goes up north through the Suez Canal and then through the Mediterranean Sea and around Africa to reach buyers in Asia. voice-verified

But also, Saudi Arabia's energy ministry confirmed that a 750-mile-long pipeline that was carrying crude oil from the east to Saudi Arabia's western coast in the Red Sea was hit by drones, this time from Iraq, and it forced that pipeline to shut down last week. voice-verified

Now, the Saudis have not disclosed how long repairs could take or the extent of damage there or to other Aramco sites that have been also hit by the Houthis. voice-verified

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