When two elephants fight, as they say, the grass bears the brunt. But in this case, it is three big, enraged ‘elephants’— two against one— that are enmeshed in a blistering war of attrition.
As the United States of America and its ally, Israel, continue to rain missiles
in devastating strikes on Iran, and the latter, in a shocking deviance and resilience, retaliates with a volley of drone attacks with almost equal ferocity, the whole world is on edge, literally choking from the heat of the raging fire.
Never has the world felt the quake of a war this way since the Second World War, which ravaged the global landscape between 1939 and 1945. Apart from disrupting world travels, the war is also upending global energy supply chains,
what the International Energy Agency (IEA) described as the “largest supply disruption” in history, threatening the world economies in an unprecedented scale.
Hundreds of thousands of people are stranded in the Middle East, the theatre of conflict, as several Gulf nations closed their airspaces, and some international airports in the Gulf, many of which serve as key transit points for global travel, also sustained damage from Iran’s retaliatory strikes, as elucidated last week. Many nations have, however, been ferrying their nationals to safety since the beginning of hostilities.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has also raised an alarm over the tragic humanitarian toll that the war is exacting on the health systems across the Middle East as the offensive rages.
The Director-General of the global health body, Tedros Ghebreyesus, in a statement shared on his X handle midweek, lamented that over 1,800 people have been killed and 12,500 others injured in less than two weeks of the ongoing military offensive.
Following the continuous barrage of missile and drone attacks in the Middle East and supply disruptions engendered by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz since March 2, the third day of the war, global crude oil prices momentarily spiked and briefly climbed to about $119 a barrel, the highest level since 2022, as traders reacted to the supply disruption. The prices dipped below $100 a barrel but then spiraled again.
A commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had announced three days after the conflict began that the strait had been “closed”, warning that any vessel attempting to pass through the waterway would be set “ablaze”.
The Strait of Hormuz, situated between Iran and Oman, is said to be one of the most strategically important waterways in the world. The narrow shipping corridor normally carries about one-fifth of the global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments. Tankers transport crude from major Gulf producers to markets across Asia, Europe and North America.
However, the route has been effectively shut following the escalation of the US–Iran war. Since the conflict began on Saturday, February 28 with joint strikes by the United States and Israel on Iranian targets, tanker movement through the strait had slowed dramatically.
Many vessels are avoiding the corridor entirely due to security risks, with several tankers already attacked since the conflict began. Hundreds of ships are currently anchored on both sides of the waterway as shipping companies and oil traders wait for signs that navigation through the strait may resume safely.
But that hope may have been dashed now as Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has foreclosed the reopening of the strait anytime soon. The younger Khamenei, who was breaking his silence five days after succeeding his late father, in a message read on Thursday on state television, said the crucial Strait of Hormuz would remain closed as a stool to pressure Iran’s “enemies.”
He said Iran would continue to attack its Persian Gulf neighbours unless the US military bases in those countries are immediately shut down.
The new Iranian leader’s announcement directly defies US President Donald Trump, who had asked that the strait be reopened immediately, warning that “death, fire, and fury will reign upon them (Iran)” if Tehran impedes oil shipments through the passage.
Khamenei, who appears to be as mulish as his slain father, commended the Iranian military for its sacrifices and vowed that the country would keep fighting to avenge “the blood of our martyrs.”
The disruption has quickly affected production across the Gulf. Top Middle East producers, including Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait, have begun reducing output at their oilfields.
With tankers unable to load crude for export, companies have been forced to divert oil into storage. However, storage facilities across the region are said to be nearing capacity after nearly 10 days of shipping disruptions.
Once storage tanks fill up, producers have little choice but to slow or halt production. Energy experts say this scenario threatens to tighten global oil supply sharply if exports do not resume soon.
The war has also damaged key energy infrastructure across the Gulf region. Some refineries have been directly hit during the conflict. The 380,000-barrel-per-day Sitra refinery, operated by Bapco Energies in Bahrain, was struck and it declared force majeure earlier last week.
Saudi Aramco had, in the meantime, shut its largest refinery at Ras Tanura, which also hosts the kingdom’s biggest marine export terminal after a drone strike from Tehran. These disruptions have further limited the region’s ability to process and export fuel products.
Again, Kuwait’s massive Al Zour Refinery, which processes about 615,000 barrels per day and supplies jet fuel to Europe and Africa, has also been affected as shipping routes remain blocked. Even if hostilities ease soon, repairing damaged infrastructure and restarting production could take weeks.
Tanker traffic through the strait has stopped, insurance costs have gone up, and big shipping companies have stopped crossing. Over 400 oil and product tankers are sitting still in the Gulf, and some vessel tracking shows that flows through Hormuz are much lower than usual.
With global supplies tightening rapidly, IEA is preparing an emergency response.
The agency has said its 32-member nations have agreed to release around 400 million barrels of oil from strategic reserves, the largest such move in its history. Emergency stockpiles are designed to cushion the global economy from sudden supply shocks.
However, the spare production capacity may not be enough to fully offset the disruption if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Until shipping resumes, refineries around the world will likely rely on existing inventories to continue producing fuel for transport, industry and power generation.
If supply losses persist, prices that have already surged may rise until higher energy costs reduce demand, a process economists often describe as “demand destruction.”
The impact is not limited to crude oil. Prices for gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, natural gas, petrochemicals, fertilisers and electricity have all risen sharply since the war began. Shipping costs have also surged as insurers and freight operators price in the risk of attacks on vessels passing through the Gulf.
The defiant posture of the new Iran’s leader to sustain the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has also spurred anxiety back home in Nigeria that product consumers may have to contend with surges in the prices of Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, also known as petrol alongside Automotive Gas Oil, AGO called diesel.
Many Nigerians had earlier seen a ray of hope of a plausible lower fuel energy cost, as the price of crude dropped midweek to $92 from $110.
The price dipped further to $88 per barrel after the IEA had announced the impending release of 400 million barrels of oil from their reserves to cushion the effect of the closure of Straits of Hormuz and the shock on oil supply.
Both Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Nigerian National Petroleum Company, NNPC Limited (NNPL) had announced petrol price reduction about the same period, heightening expectations that the price would drop further. Dangote Refinery
had last Tuesday reduced its gantry price of petrol from N1,430 to N1,075 per litre and that of diesel from N1,620 to N1, 430 per litre. NNPL followed suit, reducing N100 from the previous petrol price of N1,230 per litre in Lagos and N95 from N1,260 in Abuja.
However, the price of crude rose sharply above $100 per barrel in reaction to Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei’s insistence that the critical Strait of Hormuz would remain closed as a tool of pressure and the escalations in the United States and Israel attacks on Iran.
The crude oil price surge is also being exacerbated by the renewed wave of Iranian strikes specifically aimed at Gulf energy targets, damaging strategic and critical energy infrastructure in the region.
However, the reduction in the gantry price in the country has not affected the pump price, which is currently between N1,200 and N1,300 per litre. The price is still rising.
As a matter of fact, there are fears that the price could hit N2,000 or more per litre if the votility in the Middle East persists because our energy pricing is, to a large extent, shaped by the vagaries of international prices.
This is despite the existence of Dangote Refinery, which has immensely contributed to local refining. However, the behemoth has been responding to the rising crude prices by continuously adjusting its pump price in line with the current realities.
We admonish the Federal Government to take immediate steps to cushion the effects of the rising costs of petroleum products triggered by the Middle East crisis. There are fears of the palpable, concomitant inflationary trend. Nigerians are already lamenting surging transportation costs, food prices and costs of doing business. And if the disruptions persist, these things could spiral into a tailspin in the coming weeks.
This is the time the government should step in to work out some quick bulwarks like transportation subsidies that will cushion the effects of the rising costs. In addition, let a sizable volume of crude be allocated to the Dangote Refinery and some other promising modular refineries locally to reduce the volume of imports, which will eventually reduce the the costs of production and keep the pump price reasonable.
On the health situation, the WHO chief, Ghebreyesus, warned that health systems across the Middle East are under “immense strain” and on the verge of total collapse. He revealed that apart from Iran’s casualties as a result of the war, Lebanon recorded at least 570 deaths and around 1,400 injuries. Israel, he said, lost 15 persons, while approximately 2,142 were injured.
Since the start of the offensive, the WHO has also documented 25 attacks on health facilities in Lebanon, 18 attacks in Iran and two attacks in Israel.
“These attacks not only claim lives but also deprive communities of critical care when they need it most,” the WHO chief stressed, and urged all the parties to the conflict to respect international law and protect civilians.
Ghebreyesus warned that the urgency for action is critical to prevent the collapse of already fragile health systems, calling for unimpeded humanitarian access and immediate de-escalation of all hostilities.
He also criticised the scale of global military spending, warning that the world’s priorities remain disconsonant as millions continue to face hunger.
Ghebreyesus revealed that global military expenditure reached $2.7 trillion in a single year, a figure, which contrasted with estimates from the United Nations on the amount required to end hunger worldwide.
According to UN estimates, about $93billion annually would be needed to eliminate global hunger by 2030. The implication of the contrast, the WHO chief said, is that the world spends almost 30 times more on military activities than on ensuring that everyone has enough food to eat.
“Global military expenditure just hit $2.7 trillion in a single year. According to UN estimates, ending world hunger by 2030 would require $93 billion annually. That means we spend almost 30 times more every year on killing each other than on making sure everyone eats. Numbers don’t lie. Our priorities do,” he stressed.
The WHO’s comparison pungently highlights the inanity of the war of hubris, the like that is ongoing in the Middle East, shaped partly by the usual proclivity to flex military muscles. War does not coddle. It only fractures and utterly destroys. It dissipates resources, monuments and irreplaceable lives.
We reiterate our earlier admonition that an emergency meeting of the United Nations (UN) Security Council be convened without further delay to rally world leaders to find ways to end the current madness.
As a first step, world leaders should immediately pile moral pressure on the warring parties to allow immediate ceasefire and hit the negotiation table. Let the quest for peace supplant senseless exchange of missiles and drones. The UN Security Council should pull all the stops to impel the warring parties to de-escalate all hostilities and restore order. Enough is enough!
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