The US-Israeli war with Iran is creating the worst energy crisis the world has ever faced, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday.

“This is indeed the biggest crisis in history,” agency chief Fatih Birol told France Inter radio in an interview broadcast on Tuesday.

“The crisis is already huge, if you combine the effects of the petrol crisis and the gas crisis with Russia,” he added.

At the start of the war, Iran blocked maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, which is a conduit for a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas flows.

It has also come on top of the effects of Russia’s war with Ukraine, which had already severed Russian gas supplies to Europe.

Birol had said earlier this month that he viewed the current situation in global energy markets as worse than previous crises in 1973, 1979 and 2022 combined.

The 1973 crisis was caused by the Yom Kippur War, when Egyptian and Syrian forces launched an offensive against Israel. Six Arab members of the OPEC oil cartel declared an embargo on exports to countries supporting Israel, notably the United States, leading to a spike in oil prices, recession and inflation.

In March, the IEA agreed to release a record 400 million barrels of oil from strategic stockpiles to combat rising oil prices caused by the war in Iran.

The European Union gave a similarly stark assessment of the current crisis, saying that the coming summer will be difficult for Europe due to fuel shortages caused by the Iran war.

The EU is preparing measures to curb the impact the war is having on jet fuel supply, Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen told........

© The Times of Israel