The Cost of Asymmetry! Each Additional Day of the Iran War Harms the Global Economy by a Margin Measured in Months

The shock from this event has far exceeded the energy market itself. As Bloomberg commentator Tracy Alloway pointed out, the current Middle East situation has created a 'massive temporal mismatch': for every day the conflict continues, its impact on the global economy accumulates at a pace measured in months. As the reality of long-term LNG supply contraction gradually emerges, global inflationary pressures and energy market repricing are accelerating. Qatar’s Wound: One Strike, Five Years’ Cost According to CCTV News, parts of Iran’s southern Bushehr Province—including the South Pars and Assaluyeh petrochemical facilities—were struck by U.S. and Israeli airstrikes. Iran subsequently announced retaliatory strikes against oil infrastructure in Gulf states linked to the U.S., including Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Citing informed sources, reports indicate that Iranian missile strikes targeted LNG production facilities in Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar. The report states that liquefaction trains No. 4 and No. 6—out of a total of 14—were damaged; the status of Train No. 5, located between them, remains unclear. Additionally, one of two gas-to-liquids (GTL) facilities was also affected. Saad al-Kaabi stated that the damaged capacity accounts for approximately 17% of Qatar’s total LNG exports, forcing QatarEnergy to declare force majeure on long-term contracts with certain European and Asian customers—potentially for up to five years. Meanwhile, Qatar’s condensate exports could fall by nearly one-quarter, and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) exports may decline by 13%. This facility had already been shut down following prior drone attacks, but this latest round of strikes is larger in scale and more severely damaging. Saad al-Kaabi explicitly stated that production restoration is impossible until hostilities cease. JPMorgan Warns of Supply Shortfall Far Exceeding Prior Expectations JPMorgan commodities analyst Otar Dgebuadze, in his latest research note, lowered Qatar’s LNG normal capacity utilization rate from 90% to 80%, and significantly revised upward his estimate of Qatar’s LNG supply losses over the summer (March–October). If the Strait of Hormuz reopens one month after the conflict ends, the loss would reach 36 billion cubic meters—higher than the earlier estimate of 25–30 billion cubic meters—and each additional month of delay would add another 7 billion cubic meters of monthly loss risk. The bank assumes LNG exports will resume 30 days after the Strait of Hormuz reopens, reaching 40% utilization within two weeks and recovering to 80% within two months. Thereafter, 80% will become the new medium-term upper limit for Qatar’s facility utilization. JPMorgan also warns that the downside risk to these estimates is substantial—the actual recovery timeline may be even slower. Based on this, JPMorgan concludes that this incident further undermines the market’s prior assumption of LNG oversupply. Combined with pre-conflict delays to Qatar’s new liquefaction trains and heightened uncertainty surrounding its expansion plans, the bank believes long-term European natural gas benchmark prices have yet to fully reflect these risks.

In-Depth Global Macro-Financial and Major Asset Forecast Report for Spring 2026: Gold Price Trends and Capital Market Restructuring Under Full-Scale U.S.–Israel–Iran Conflict

Chapter Three: The Breakdown of Crude Oil Pricing Mechanisms and the Rekindling of a Global Energy Crisis Crude oil markets will face the most dramatic paradigm shift in pricing over the next 1–3 months. Prior to this crisis, the global crude market—based on micro-level supply-demand fundamentals—was relatively well-supplied. However, the complete collapse of geopolitical stability has caused the 'risk premium' to entirely displace the supply-demand balance sheet as the dominant driver of short-term crude pricing. Brent crude is expected to break above the USD 85–90/barrel range in extremely short order, and under an extreme scenario where the Strait of Hormuz faces a material threat, there exists a significant tail-risk of prices surging toward USD 110–120/barrel. The Instant Collapse of Supply-Demand Fundamentals Prior to February 28, international oil prices remained under pressure due to global (especially China’s) energy transition efforts, slowing economic growth, and a sharp increase in crude output from non-OPEC countries—including the U.S. and several South American nations. By late February, Brent crude hovered near USD 67/barrel—a notable decline from its peak level one year earlier. Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research, in its year-end 2025 forecast, projected that the global crude market would face a supply surplus of approximately 2 million barrels per day in 2025–2026, and accordingly lowered its average Brent price forecast for 2026 to USD 56/barrel. Similarly, JPMorgan’s energy research team predicted that oil prices would undergo a sharp correction in 2026, driven by oversupply and rising upstream capital expenditures across the Middle East. Yet when Israeli missiles struck Tehran—and U.S. fighter jets launched indiscriminate military strikes across Iranian territory—all such peace-time supply-demand models instantly became obsolete. Iran currently produces roughly 3.6 million barrels of crude oil per day—about 3.5% of global output. Although U.S. officials officially claim their strikes target only military nodes and nuclear facilities—seeking to avoid damaging energy infrastructure so as not to trigger runaway oil prices that could backfire on the U.S. economy—the probability of accidental hits or of Iran deliberately destroying its own and neighboring countries’ energy infrastructure—as part of a scorched-earth strategy—is extremely high amid intense, full-scale warfare. JPMorgan’s quantitative historical back-testing model reveals a chilling pattern: since 1979, during eight major historical episodes involving regime change or large-scale military conflict in mid- to large-sized oil-producing countries—including the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution, which doubled oil prices and triggered a global recession—the average surge in crude prices—from initial crisis lows to final peaks—has reached 76%. Starting from the pre-war low of USD 67/barrel, a 76% rise would propel oil prices toward a terrifying high of nearly USD 118/barrel within the coming months. The Strait of Hormuz: Standing on the Edge of the Global Economic Lifeline Physical damage to crude production capacity is certainly alarming—but the war’s truly devastating weapon lies in the navigational safety of the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical energy logistics artery. This strait not only links the Persian Gulf with the Arabian Sea, but also serves as the sole maritime chokepoint for energy exports from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the UAE, Kuwait—and Iran itself.

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