For the Global South, energy security is no longer a policy talking point – it is a question of survival. With traditional shipping routes rattled by the Middle East conflict, developing countries are being hit by rising costs, broken supply chains, and shortages they did not create.

At the 81st UN General Assembly in September 2026, Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and other leaders from the Global South made that frustration unmistakably clear: poorer nations are being squeezed by a deepening crisis across energy, food, fuel, fertilizer, finance, and logistics.

Nepalese Prime Minister Balen Shah put it starkly: “We have built a world with flawless logistics for war and broken logistics for food. And this is not Nepal’s private misfortune. Ask Bangladesh. Ask Bhutan. Ask India. Ask the Maldives. Ask Pakistan. Ask Sri Lanka. Ask any other country in our region and you will hear the same account: hit by the climate we did not warm, and hit again by the wars we did not start.”

Weeks earlier, on the other side of the world, BRICS leaders gathered in New Delhi had already framed the same problem in strategic terms. Their summit declaration called for stable energy markets, “undisrupted flows of energy from diverse sources,” and stronger protection of critical infrastructure.

Events soon put that ambition under strain. Drone attacks disrupted Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, an important route for moving crude to the Red Sea while bypassing the Strait of Hormuz. With loadings at Yanbu affected, Saudi Arabia began offering more crude to Asian buyers through ship-to-ship transfers off Oman. The episode showed how quickly even an alternative route can become vulnerable.

BRICS now includes some of the world’s biggest oil producers as well as major importers. Yet membership alone does not guarantee access to another member’s oil when supplies tighten. Producers may have other buyers,........

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