How Iran war laid bare the world’s reliance on Gulf oil and gas in Oil & Companies News 14/03/2026 The US-Israel war with Iran has made startlingly clear how much the world relies on energy from the Gulf region. Since the conflict began, the price of oil has soared and is currently trading at over a third higher at $100 a barrel, pushed up by air strikes on shipping and energy infrastructure, and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for energy shipments, which carries a fifth of global oil supplies. Nowhere is feeling the effects of the current energy crisis quite like Asia. Last year, nearly 90% of all the oil and gas that passed through the Strait of Hormuz was bound for the region. Ordinary people rely on it to heat their homes, fuel their vehicles and generate electricity. Businesses need it to power the region’s vast manufacturing base. South East Asia, in particular, is highly exposed to the blockage in the Persian Gulf. Even countries that produce oil themselves, such as Malaysia and Indonesia, have gradually started producing less and importing more over the past decade. The vulnerability is also partly to do with the type of oil produced in the Middle East and how countries in the region refine it. “Middle Eastern crude is generally ‘heavy sour’ or ‘medium sour’,” says Jane Nakano, a senior fellow in the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Refineries in South East Asia, Nakano explains, have been set up to process this type of crude oil and simply switching to another provider, such as the US, is not straightforward. “It would take significant investment to alter refinery specifications,” she says. It puts many countries in a bind. The Philippines, for example, gets around 95% of its crude oil from the Middle East. The country’s president has already told public workers to switch to a four-day working week to save fuel. Working from home is being heavily encouraged by various governments in the region. Other fuel-saving measures, such as setting air conditioner temperatures in public offices at a higher than usual 26°C, were announced by Thailand’s energy minister on Tuesday. South East Asia is also heavily reliant on food imports. The island city-state of Singapore imports 90% of its food, while all of Indonesia’s wheat, for example, comes from outside the country. This makes food prices particularly sensitive to rising transportation costs. Last week, the price of jet fuel had soared by nearly 60%. Petrol price caps Vietnam is also feeling the strain. The price of diesel has gone up there by nearly 60% since last month. In some cities this week there were long queues of moped riders at petrol stations panic-buying fuel. There have been similar scenes in Bangladesh. Prices at the pumps have been going up around the world, although to a lesser extent than seen in Asia. In the US average petrol prices are up 23% on a month ago, while diesel prices are up by a third. In the UK diesel is up 9%. It is something that governments are keeping an eye on. South Korea has ordered a temporary cap on the price of fuel to ease anxiety over the rising price of oil. Japan has said it will provide subsidies to oil wholesalers, in order to contain retail petrol prices. In France, TotalEnergies has said it will cap the price of petrol and diesel at its service stations from Friday until the end of the month, according to Reuters. In the UK, a planned rise in