In his speech to the National Press Club of Australia on 23 March 2026, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol, said that the global energy crisis caused by Trump and Netanyahu’s  war in Iran is equivalent to the combined force of the twin oil shocks of the 1970s and the fallout of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine combined. The current global problems, including dramatic increases in gas and oil from the middle east, could be seriously compounded through interruptions to the global economy, including supply and hence prices of petrochemicals, fertilisers, sulphur and helium.

About 20% of the world’s oil supply is transported through the strait of Hormuz. The effects of American and Israeli bombings of Iran, and Iran’s consequent closure of the strategic strait, have not been properly understood by world leaders, he said. Birol explained that about 5 million (m) barrels of oil had been lost each day in the two crises in 1973 and 1979. Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine had removed about 75 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas from international markets.

But the current crisis, which started with bombings against the regime in Tehran on 28 February, already represented the loss of 11m barrels of oil per day and about 140 bcm of gas.