The head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday that the ongoing disruption to global energy supplies caused by Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz surpasses any previous crisis in history, including the oil shocks of the 1970s.

“The world has never experienced a disruption to energy supply of such magnitude,” Fatih Birol told French newspaper Le Figaro, describing the current crisis as “more serious than the ones in 1973, 1979 and 2022 together.”

Iran moved to almost entirely shut traffic through the Strait following strikes by Israel and the United States, choking off a waterway through which around a fifth of the world’s oil and gas normally passes and sending energy prices sharply higher.

Oil prices continued to climb on Tuesday as a U.S. deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait drew closer, with President Donald Trump threatening strikes on Iranian infrastructure if Tehran failed to comply.

rose 0.2% to $110.01 a barrel by 08:41 GMT, while climbed 0.3% to $112.75, extending gains from the previous session.

Trump warned that Iran would be “taken out” if it did not lift its blockade of the Strait, and threatened to order attacks on Iranian bridges and power plants

Birol said the fallout would be felt across developed economies including European nations, Japan and Australia, but warned that developing countries faced the greatest threat, confronting a combination of surging oil and gas costs, higher food prices and a broad acceleration of inflation.

IEA member countries agreed last month to tap their strategic reserves in response to the supply shock, and Birol said releases were already underway and continuing.
Source: Investing.com