Wars are usually judged by what happens on the battlefield. Their strongest effects, however, often travel far beyond it. The 2026 war between the United States and Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz for months, drained global oil stocks and pushed up fuel prices in countries that had no part in the fighting. Pakistan was one of them.

The scale of the shock was unprecedented. The International Energy Agency called it the largest oil supply disruption in history. More than 14 million barrels a day of Middle East output was shut in, and by May global supply had fallen about 13.6 million barrels a day below pre-war levels. Even after the interim agreement, the agency warned that flows were unlikely to return to normal before early 2027. A regional war had become a global economic event, and its costs would outlast the fighting.

Every litre of petrol that transport no longer needs is a litre Pakistan no longer has to import.

Every litre of petrol that transport no longer needs is a litre Pakistan no longer has to import.

For Pakistan, the exposure was structural. Up to 90 per cent of its oil and LNG imports pass through Hormuz. More than 80 per cent of its petroleum products are imported, and transport alone consumes about 87 per cent of its oil. The war reached Pakistan not through military action but through the fuel pump, the import bill and inflation, which approached 11 per cent in April. Higher oil prices pressed on foreign exchange reserves, raised the cost of transport,........

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