Natalie Kitroweth

They're trying to basically limit their usage for now as much as possible.

Right.

And as the conflict has dragged on and on, the conversation seems to have turned much more to the possibility that what we may be looking at is a genuine oil shock, a genuine supply shock.

And I think one of the main questions that people are asking is,

is how bad is this going to get?

Yeah, it's kind of wild to imagine oil rationing in the United States.

Do we really think that's a possibility today?

How apt is the comparison between that shock and what we're experiencing now?

You're saying the shift toward prioritizing things like fuel efficiency in cars, toward drawing on other fuel sources, that's primarily about countries trying to secure their own energy independence, trying to protect themselves, essentially, from a repetition of what happened in 1973.

Right.

Basically, since 1973, the whole world, in response to that crisis, has become a lot less dependent on oil, relatively speaking.

And the U.S.

in particular has become much less dependent on foreign countries for the oil that it does consume.

We'll be right back.

Rebecca, you've made it clear that the effects of this building crisis are going to compound, are going to get worse and worse each day that this shutdown continues.

You told us earlier that there were currently many ships just stranded, waiting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, with very few actually making it.

What is the outlook for those stranded tankers?

Barring the war ending, is there any way this situation changes in the Strait in the near term?

So what about the oil companies?

Obviously, this is a huge problem for them, too.