Europe has woke up with a new conflict that has exploded in the Middle East, a conflict that risks widening and having world consequences, also from an economic point of view. Israel has launched vast staircases against Iran, killing several military leaders and targeting nuclear plants and factories of ballistic missiles.
Premier Benjamin Netanyahu said that this is only the beginning of a prolonged operation that would serve to prevent Tehran from building an atomic weapon. “The next attacks will be even more brutal”, warned the US president, Donald Trump, in a post on the social truth in which he asked Iran to “make an agreement” on nuclear power, “before nothing remains, and save what was once known as the Persian Empire”.
Prices of gas, oil and gold fly fly: the first consequences of Israel’s attack on Iran
Words that certainly will not serve to calm the waters, with the Tehran regime that knows he is militarily lower than Tel Aviv, but is still driven to react to alleviate the humiliation suffered, and not to appear weak to its citizens and also to its opponents.
The risk of an escalation
The retaliation of Iran could involve attacks not only against the Israeli territory, but also its goods and interests, and also the US ones if a hard line prevails. And the war could expand with the involvement of the Allies of Iran in the region, the Houthi in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Both of these militias are still licking the wounds after the heavy defeats always suffered by Israel, but still have the ability to conduct attacks. Even the simple sinking of a sufficient number of oil tankers or the refinerie smoke could have an immediate impact on the global economy and this, they could hope for the Iranians, would convince the West to put pressure on Israel so that it stops.
The Strait of Hormuz
And the same effect, indeed even worse, Iran could get it by closing the Strait of Hormuz, a fundamental ganglion for the region’s hydrocarbons trade, between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. The Strait is the entrance door (and exit) from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean and is one of the strategically most important stroke points in the world.
It is located between the Iran coast and the Musandam peninsula, shared by the United Arab Emirates and the Governorate of Musandam, a Oman’s Exclave. In the Strait, about 20 million barrels per day of oil and oil products pass, which represent almost a fifth of the global shipments of this hydrocarbon. Any move to block this flow would affect the energy markets.
Between the beginning of 2022 and last month, about 17.8 million and 20.8 million barrels of crude oil, condensed and fuels crossed the strait every day, according to Vortexa data. The members of the Saudi Arabia Arabia, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq export most of their crude oil through the Strait, mainly towards Asia. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have tried to find other routes to get around the Strait, but it is not easy.
Not only that, Qatar, among the major liquefied natural gas exporters (GNL) to the world, sends almost all its GNL through the Strait, from which a third of this type of gas passes worldwide.
International pressures
Over the years, Iran has repeatedly threatened to block the Strait, but has never followed the threat. For example, he did this in 2018 following the withdrawal of the United States from the nuclear agreement and the re -entitled of sanctions. It was back in 1973 that the Arab producers, led by Saudi Arabia, imposed an oil embargo to the western supporters of Israel in his war against Egypt, who had harsh consequences.
Today, however, the situation has changed and if at the time the western countries were the main buyers of the crude oil produced by the Arab countries, today Asia is the main buyer of the crude of the OPEC. China is the first Iranian oil importer and represents over three quarters of its oil exports. The second world economy is also the main commercial partner of Iran.
Therefore, Beijing will surely put pressure on Tehran so that the Hormuz Strait remains open and functional. But with an escalation of the conflict, Tehran’s movement could not be excluded, which is aware that an interruption of supplies would have repercussions on the world markets.
