On April 13, Fatih Birol, the Executive Director of the IEA (International Energy Agency), stated that More than 80 energy facilities have been attacked in all since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Iran on Feb 28. More than a third of those are severely damaged.
Speaking at an Atlantic Council event held in Washington, D.C., Birol noted that given the scale of destruction across oil fields, refineries, terminals, and other infrastructure, restoring supply will take considerable time even if the conflict ends immediately. He analyzed that it could take up to two years to restore regional energy supplies to pre-crisis levels, which illustrates the severity of the disruption across the region’s entire oil and gas system.
Birol characterized the current turmoil as the “the greatest threat to energy security in history,” expressing concern that the loss of oil and gas supplies has already far exceeded the losses seen during the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979, as well as the aftermath of the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in 2022.
Specifically, he added that global oil supplies have decreased by approximately 30 million barrels per day (bpd) to date—a figure that dwarfs the roughly 5 million bpd reduction during the 1970s oil crises. He also noted that natural gas supply disruptions have surpassed the 75 billion cubic meters (bcm) lost following the start of the war in Ukraine.
Regarding emergency response measures, Birol mentioned that the IEA has already coordinated a record-breaking release of 400 million barrels of crude oil from strategic reserves in March, marking the largest and most rapid action in the agency’s history. He emphasized that the agency is prepared to take immediate further action should market conditions deteriorate.
However, he warned that for countries with fragile finances or limited storage capacity, emergency reserves alone cannot offset the long-term loss of infrastructure. Furthermore, he cautioned that this war is obstructing the flow of fertilizers, petrochemicals, helium, and other critical raw materials essential to global supply chains.
