The Iran War in Numbers: The Gulf's Windfall and Qatar's Hormuz Trap

The Iran war has been ruinous for the region's security and, at the same time, lucrative for its treasuries. The conflict that put Gulf oil terminals within range of missiles has also pushed Brent crude about 54 percent above its pre-war level, and for the Arab states that sell that oil, higher prices mean fuller coffers.

That is the part the global coverage tends to miss. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are net energy exporters, so a price spike is income rather than expense. Every additional dollar on a barrel of crude, and every increment on oil-indexed gas contracts, flows back to budgets that were drawn up assuming far cheaper energy. In revenue terms the Gulf is among the war's biggest winners.

The scale of the move is unusual. Brent traded near $72 a barrel before the fighting began in late February, according to the International Energy Agency, jumped about $20 within days, and reached roughly $111 by mid-May on Reuters figures. The US Energy Information Administration expects a second-quarter peak near $115 before prices ease. The chart below traces that path through the war's first 89 days.

The windfall comes with a catch written into the map. Close to 20 million barrels of oil move through the Strait of Hormuz every day, around a fifth of world supply, and the alternatives are thin. Saudi Arabia can divert up to about seven million barrels a day overland to Yanbu on the Red Sea, and the UAE can route roughly 1.5 million through Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman. Together that reroutes only a fraction of what the strait carries, which is why the IEA now expects global demand to outrun supply by 1.78 million barrels a day this year.

Qatar sits at the tightest point of that bind. As the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, it has no overland bypass at all: almost every cargo it ships must pass through Hormuz, and the field that feeds those exports is shared with Iran. So the state that gains most from oil-indexed prices is also the one least able to keep selling if the chokepoint closes. For the Gulf the war's ledger runs in two columns at once, revenue and risk, and Doha is where both stand highest. Prices have come off their peak, but with the IEA still forecasting tight markets, neither column is closing soon.