Aerial view of oil storage facilities in Longkou in east China's Shandong province.

Photograph: Getty Images

Aug 9th 2026|6 min read

THE IRAN war has caused the largest supply shock in petroleum history. Yet even when fighting was most intense, oil prices never reached the $150 a barrel many analysts had predicted at the start of the conflict. For this, thank a few governments. Soon after Iranian munitions made the Strait of Hormuz unpassable, trapping 14m barrels a day (b/d) of crude inside the Gulf, petro-monarchs in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh directed an extra 5m b/d through pipes bypassing the conduit. Ministers in Washington and Tokyo released a record 2m b/d of emergency stocks; state-led rationing in poorer countries shaved off a chunk of demand.

A young South-Asian woman typing on a keyboard at her computer desk in a busy office environment with colleagues working in the background

How China became the world’s great oil power