The resignation of the Oil Minister and speculations

What he says

An English translation of the talk, which is in Persian. It was made with AI from YouTube's automatic captions and may contain errors; the Persian transcript is authoritative. Click a timestamp to jump to that part of the video.

0:01 Hello. Monday, 13 Mehr 1405, October 5, 2026. The resignation of Mohsen Paknejad, the Minister of Oil, and its acceptance by Mr. Pezeshkian, the head of the government, has prompted a great deal of speculation and analysis. The official position announced by the government is that Mr. Paknejad had wanted to resign for some time, that he has family and personal issues, and that the head of the government finally accepted. But some people say that after Mr.

0:50 Paknejad announced that oil exports had reached zero, he was forced to resign. Another part of the talk and speculation is that he was forced to resign because of the pressure he applied to recover the money from the trustees who sold the oil but never brought the money back. There is talk of billions upon billions of dollars: at least 100 million barrels of oil were taken by four people, and they never brought back the money. They took it to sell it while getting around the sanctions. Because for years, due to

1:39 US sanctions, the Ministry of Oil cannot sell a single barrel of oil itself, and it has to hand it over to a number of people who, naturally, also have to be heavyweights with influence in the government and access to the Office of the Leader, Khamenei, Mojtaba, and so on, like Shamkhani's son or Mohsen Rezaei's son-in-law, or others. They gave the oil to these people, and they would take it and sell it to small refineries in China, and the money would stay there in their accounts. They would tell the Central Bank, for example, that "we sold these 2 million, no, 10 million barrels of oil that the Ministry of Oil gave us," and the Central Bank in turn

2:27 would count that as part of the foreign currency reserves and give the rial equivalent to the government. And if someone wanted to make a purchase, after going through various stages, if the Central Bank agreed, say, to open a letter of credit, it would in effect tell one of these same trustees, for example, "So-and-so has a pro forma invoice from China; allocate, say, one million dollars from it and buy these goods." In any case, this filthy, corrupt, convoluted story has created gangs, one end of which is in the IRGC Quds Force, which has officially exported 25 percent of the oil over these years, and the other end

3:18 is in the Office of the Leader and among various IRGC commanders and corrupt people who have effectively created Iran's oligarchy. Mr. Paknejad, who resigned, in any case became minister at a time when these gangs had already formed. In this situation, he, whose background is that of a technocrat in the Ministry of Oil, who worked at various management levels and in fact rose from within the system, should not have accepted this post from day one, or if he did accept it, his condition from the very beginning should have been that

4:08 he would not hand over oil, petrochemicals, gas, refined products, gas condensates and so on to these mafia people who have sunk their claws into them. Instead, for example, through a transparent tender or through transparent and accountable methods, they should have gotten around the oil sanctions. In any case, whatever the truth is, for now his resignation has been accepted and he has stepped aside, and his replacement is the current managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company, who has become the caretaker of

4:59 the ministry, temporarily, until Mr. Pezeshkian introduces someone to the Majlis. The issue of the mafia gangs that control the exports of oil, petrochemicals, refined petroleum products, and gas condensates, and on the other side even products like steel and other things, has, because of years of sanctions and the formation of these mafia gangs, reached a point where one can say decisively that the Islamic Republic is now a kleptocracy, a government of thieves, in which a number of oligarchs, a group of people with political and

5:50 economic influence, effectively hold a monopoly over these vital products and the country's main exports. Moreover, these oligarchs also have great influence in the other sectors of Iran's economy, and many of the country's domestic political equations, and even its foreign policy and vital issues such as war and peace, can only be properly understood once we identify the place of these corrupt people, the Al Capones at the head of the mafia gangs of plunder and power. But over

6:44 the past 24 hours, on one hand, Mr. Ali Abdollahi, commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, which is responsible for the war, as well as the chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Amir Hatami, commander-in-chief of the Army, and Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, issued sharp and harsh warnings that if America goes to war, they will respond seriously. And if we take their words as a measure, it seems they have information that war may be imminent, especially since we know that the third American aircraft carrier,

7:33 the USS Roosevelt, is also heading to the region, and more than 10,000 amphibious and other troops have also been added to US forces in the region, which in any case does not bode well. But Mr. Ghalibaf, who is in charge of the negotiations, has again emphasized that "we are ready to talk," and has said he has given new proposals for the negotiations to the mediators. But he too emphasized that until negotiations begin and Iran's demands are met, the Strait of Hormuz will not be opened. Interestingly, though, Kpler, which tracks ships, announced today that

8:25 22.5 million barrels of oil have passed through the Strait of Hormuz, and that last week the average oil transit through the strait was 18.5 million barrels. Before the US and Israeli war with Iran, on average 20 million barrels of oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz daily. So if these figures are correct, one can say that the blade of the Strait of Hormuz lever, whose effectiveness Iran had counted on very heavily, has been blunted, and this lever has lost much of its effectiveness. On the other hand, in Yemen, the PLC government, that is,

9:16 the government backed by Saudi Arabia, has intensified its attacks against the Houthis, and news agencies have reported that it has retaken parts of Bab el-Mandeb, as well as part of the territory the Houthis had seized. But at the same time, the Houthis again attacked Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline, and this caused North Sea oil to reach $103 a barrel today. The situation in Yemen is such that, in my opinion, we should see developments in the next few days, especially since Turkey,

10:10 Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia held a joint meeting and, based on the trilateral defense pact they had proposed, agreed to send rapid reaction forces to Saudi Arabia to counter the attacks by the Houthis from Yemen. In my view, this whole thing is another side of the crisis now unfolding in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, and if what is being said goes ahead and the Houthis' hand is cut off from Bab el-Mandeb, one can say that another lever has been taken away from the Islamic Republic.

11:00 Meanwhile, in Iran, the free-market price of the dollar entered the 270,000-toman range, which naturally shows that inflationary pressure has intensified, the collapse of the currency has worsened, and the dizziness that severe inflation causes people in their transactions has increased. It is interesting that this upward trend of the dollar, which has kept rising every day over these past few days, is happening while the Central Bank has announced that it is going to inject 10 billion dollars into the foreign exchange market, and that every Iranian, with their national ID card number, can go to

11:51 the Bale app, fill out the form there, and will be told which bank branch to go to and buy their 10,000 dollars. The problem is that this is a futile measure: even if it is carried out, it effectively does not eliminate the main factors, namely liquidity growth, the velocity of transactions and so on, and the decline in GDP. These 10 billion dollars will be absorbed and the price will remain high. It might cause a small pause, so to speak, but it is useless, especially because if the price the Central Bank offers is close to the free-market price, it won't be worthwhile and won't be

12:42 attractive; mostly exchange dealers will go and buy it to have it for their business. But if the gap between the price it offers and the free-market price is large enough to make it worthwhile, then immediately a black market will form in which ordinary people, who don't have billions of tomans to go and buy 10,000 dollars, will have their national ID card numbers taken, they'll be paid a pittance, and the whole thing will fall into the hands of a particular group of people, as has happened before. In any case, it is a futile move by the Central Bank, and it really is incomprehensible why they are doing such a thing. A painkiller that will not cure this headache and dizziness of the economy even to the extent of a

13:33 simple aspirin. Meanwhile, the Mizan news agency announced that Alireza Sepahi and Alireza Raeisi were executed today in Isfahan. Both of them had been arrested in connection with the case of Alikhani Square in Malekshahr, Isfahan, and after a long period under torture and unjust trials, they had been sentenced to death. In total, 12 people were sentenced to death in this case, and with the execution of these two, at least 6 people have been executed so far.

14:23 The reason for this case is that the regime says four members of FARAJA [the police] and the Basij were killed by these people in Alikhani Square. It is not clear how, for four people killed, you should execute 12 people in their place. But in any case, the regime does this to create fear and terror, and in fact, the trend of intensifying executions can have no other reason than to create fear and intensify the repression. Hoping for the victory of Iran and Iranians.