Europe has “maybe 6 weeks or so of jet fuel left”, the head of the International Energy Agency said, warning of possible flight cancellations “soon” if oil supplies remain blocked by the Iran war.
IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol on Thursday painted a sobering picture of the global repercussions of what he called “the largest energy crisis we have ever faced”, stemming from the pinch-off of oil, gas and other vital supplies through the Strait of Hormuz.
“In the past, there was a group called ‘Dire Straits’, and Europe is in a dire strait now, and it is going to have major implications for the global economy. And the longer it goes, the worse it will be for the economic growth and inflation around the world,” he said.
The impact will be “higher petrol (gasoline) prices, higher gas prices, and high electricity prices,” Birol told AP, with some parts of the world “hit worse than the others”.
“The front line is the Asian countries” that rely on energy from the Middle East, he said, naming Japan, Korea, India, China, Pakistan and Bangladesh.