The Iran war has transformed the Indian Ocean and the broader Gulf region into the most strategically contested energy geography on earth, the head of the International Energy Agency has said. Fatih Birol, speaking in Canberra, said the conflict had highlighted just how much of the world’s most critical energy supply infrastructure and transit routes were concentrated in this single region. He described the overall crisis as equivalent to the combined force of the 1970s twin oil shocks and the Ukraine gas emergency.
Birol noted that the Gulf region contained the world’s largest oil and gas reserves, its most critical energy export infrastructure, and its most important transit chokepoint in the Hormuz strait. The concentration of so much strategic energy value in a single contested region had always represented a structural vulnerability — and the Iran crisis had demonstrated what happened when that vulnerability was exploited at maximum scale.
The conflict began February 28 with US and Israeli strikes on Iran and has since removed 11 million barrels of oil per day and 140 billion cubic metres of gas from world markets. At least 40 Gulf energy assets have been severely damaged, and the Hormuz strait — through which approximately 20 percent of global oil flows — remains closed. The IEA deployed 400 million barrels from strategic reserves on March 11 in its largest emergency action.
Birol confirmed further releases were under consideration and said consultations with governments across Europe, Asia, and North America were ongoing. He called for demand-side policies including remote work, lower speed limits, and reduced commercial aviation. He met with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and noted that Australia’s proximity to the Indian Ocean region gave it a particular strategic interest in the stabilization of energy flows through the area.
Trump’s 48-hour ultimatum to Iran to reopen the strait expired without result, and Tehran threatened retaliatory strikes on US and allied energy and water infrastructure. Japan indicated it could contribute minesweeping military assets if a ceasefire was achieved. Birol concluded that the Indian Ocean region’s strategic energy importance demanded a permanent and serious international security framework to protect the energy infrastructure and transit routes on which the entire global economy depended.