{"id":335310,"date":"2026-03-12T11:57:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T11:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/335310\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T11:57:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T11:57:07","slug":"oil-shock-largest-supply-disruption-in-history-iea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/335310\/","title":{"rendered":"Oil shock ‘largest supply disruption’ in history: IEA"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mideast war \u201cis creating the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market\u201d, as Iran\u2019s chokehold on regional supplies forces Gulf producers to slash production, the International Energy Agency said Thursday.<\/p>\n

In its latest market report, the IEA said crude production was currently down by at least 8.0 million bpd, with an additional 2.0 million related to petroleum products including condensates shut off.<\/p>\n

The conflict, which was triggered on February 28 by American-Israeli attacks on Iran, is hampering the global economy\u2019s supply of oil and weakening production capacity.<\/p>\n

ALSO READ | Attack on oil tankers off Iraq kills one, rescue operation ongoing<\/a><\/p>\n

The war has seen Iran tighten its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of global crude passes, \u00a0effectively all but shutting it down.<\/p>\n

IEA said current flows through the strait were moving at less than 10 percent of pre-crisis levels, which in 2025 were around 15 million barrels per day \u2014 with \u201cno signs of a de-escalation in hostilities or a clear timeline for a recovery in flows through the Strait.\u201d<\/p>\n

It stressed that a resumption of lows would be key in minimising the war\u2019s impact on global markets.<\/p>\n

Against that backdrop, major European stock markets were off more than half of one percent in early morning trading. In Asia, Japan\u2019s Nikkei had shed one percent at the close while Hong Kong closed off 0.7 percent.<\/p>\n

A threat from Tehran to bring down the global economy overshadowed an impending record release of strategic crude by the IEA. On Wednesday it said said its 32 members had agreed to unlock 400 million barrels of oil from reserves \u2014 their largest release ever.<\/p>\n

\u2018Stop-gap measure\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThe co-ordinated emergency stock release provides a significant and welcome buffer, but in the absence of a swift resolution to the conflict, it remains a stop-gap measure,\u201d the IEA warned.<\/p>\n

The United States has proposed partially lifting sanctions against Russia in an attempt to offset the fallout from the squeeze on Hormuz, but Group of Seven nations Wednesday rejected the idea.<\/p>\n

Oil prices have gyrated since the crisis began, rising more than 30 percent to around $120 a barrel only to drop back.<\/p>\n

Prices again topped $100 Thursday but then fell again to around $92 a barrel, representing a day rise of some six percent as analysts predicted elevated prices for the forseeable future amid reports of more Iranian attacks on vessels, notably off the coast of Iraq.<\/p>\n

The IEA said in its report the shortfall could be partially addressed with alternative routes such as transit through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait from the Red Sea, although this route has in recent years \u201ccarried a risk of Houthi (rebel) attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite efforts to stave off the disruption via emergency stockpiles, the IEA forecast March global oil supplies would drop 8 million bpd to 98.8 million bpd for their lowest level in four years.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor forecasting purposes, we have assumed only minimal flows through the Strait of Hormuz in March,\u201d it stated.<\/p>\n

The IEA added supply curtailments in the Middle East are being partly offset by higher output from non-OPEC+ producers, Kazakhstan and Russia. While overall supply losses would depend on the duration of the war, it estimated global oil supply would rise 1.1 million bpd in 2026 on average, with non-OPEC+ producers accounting for the entire increase.<\/p>\n

ALSO READ | Oil tops $100 as Iran attacks offset IEA stockpile release<\/a><\/p>\n

Citing the \u201cgeopolitical alarm\u201d in the region, Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said that \u201cin brokerage jargon, the IEA\u2019s decision (to release emergency supplies) is equivalent to using a garden hose to put out a refinery fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kathleen Brooks, director of research at XTB, observed that \u201cthe conflict has intensified this week, and the longer the oil price remains elevated, the more damaging and long-lasting the inflation shock will be for the global economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The IEA concluded that even if the conflict intensity recedes to the extent oil flows can resume \u201cit will take several days to weeks\u201d for the backlog of tankers on both sides of the Strait to clear.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdditionally, shut-in upstream production will take weeks and, in some cases, months, to return to pre-crisis levels depending on the degree of field complexity and the timing for workers, equipment and resources to return to the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mideast war \u201cis creating the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market\u201d, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,184,6047,85,46,63449,43,5839,49660,162226],"class_list":{"0":"post-335310","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-iea","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-kzn","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-oil","16":"tag-oil-price","17":"tag-oil-shock"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}