“Markets are now grappling with a scenario long discussed in theory but rarely thought of as a legitimate possibility — the effective shutdown of the world’s most critical energy chokepoint,” said Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz, lead energy analyst for the Europe team at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. While the 1970s crises knocked out 7 percent of global supplies, she said, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz affects 20 percent.
When the war first broke out, EU officials hoped the bloc would be spared from serious shortages thanks to its relatively low exposure to the Persian Gulf, which it relied on for just 6 percent of its crude oil and under 10 percent of its natural gas. The biggest risk articulated in countless ministerial and technical meetings was higher prices.
Europe’s security of supply was rarely questioned, with officials pointing to the continent’s diversified sources beyond the Persian Gulf: the U.S., Norway, Azerbaijan and Algeria. The biggest risk, they said, was that the conflict would go on a long time — only then would supply seriously become a concern.
As the war enters its fifth week, those fears are being borne out. One immediate worry is that Asian countries, which before the war relied on the Gulf for some 80 percent of their gas and oil, are beginning to bid up the price of those products as they fight over dwindling supplies. That has diverted merchants with more flexible contracts toward Asia to exploit the higher profit margins, turning them away from Europe.
According to Charles Costerousse, a senior energy analyst at maritime consultancy Kpler, 11 U.S.- and Nigerian-flagged LNG tankers have been redirected from Europe to further east in the past few days. Within the next few days, the last tanker bearing Qatari LNG will arrive in Europe, he said.
With almost all global suppliers at maximum capacity, European leaders are beginning to “realize that the LNG supplies they were counting on were not coming here as expected,” said Jaller-Makarewicz. “It’s not like we have a buffer. It’s not like we have some security there.” Europe, she said, will start to feel the pain “this coming month” — perhaps within a few weeks.