The global economy demonstrated unexpected resilience during the monthslong closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which about a fifth of the world’s oil supply normally passes. The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Douglas, in an analysis published Wednesday, identified five structural factors that kept the damage from matching historical oil crises.
Going into the crisis, major importers in Europe and Asia had built up strategic oil reserves and commercial inventories after a run-up in 2025, providing a buffer. The International Energy Agency said global oil demand is estimated to fall by about 5 percent, or roughly 5 million barrels a day, in the second quarter of 2026. Société Générale noted that this decline was much smaller than the roughly 10 percent drops seen during the 1973 Arab oil embargo, the Iran-Iraq war that began in 1980, and the 1956 Suez Crisis.
Fears that oil would surge to $150 or even $200 a barrel did not materialize, according to the analysis, because Middle Eastern producers found alternative routes faster than expected. Exports from Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port of Yanbu jumped to around 4 million barrels a day from less than 1 million before the war, according to commodities and shipping data provider Kpler. The United Arab Emirates turned to pipeline exports from Abu Dhabi to the port of Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman. U.S. oil exports soared to new records. Venezuela’s oil exports rose 43 percent in the past three months compared with a year earlier, and Brazil’s exports jumped by a third, Kpler data showed.
China, the world’s second-largest economy, cut its oil imports by around 3 million barrels a day with little visible disruption. Beijing drew from its vast strategic reserves and found alternative suppliers. Refineries reduced production to conserve crude. More fundamentally, China had reoriented its economy to use less imported oil: electricity generation increasingly relies on coal and renewables, and Chinese drivers have adopted electric vehicles at a high rate, reducing gasoline demand. The crisis was not costless — producer prices rose and retail spending fell in May — but China’s resilience and that of other Asian economies helped keep global activity humming.
Energy efficiency improvements also blunted the impact. Adjusted for inflation, energy intensity — the amount of energy burned to generate a dollar of GDP — has fallen by about a third since 2000 in the United States and Europe and by about 40 percent in China, according to World Bank data. Advanced economies have shifted to less energy-intensive services such as finance and healthcare. Renewables and appliance efficiency played a role, lessons that Europe took to heart after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in April that these efficiency gains were mitigating the shock.
The artificial-intelligence boom provided a major counterweight. The rapid build-out of data centers in the United States and excitement around the technology lifted trade and investment and pushed stock markets to record highs. Asian economies supplying memory chips, machinery and electronics benefited especially: Taiwan’s exports more than doubled since the beginning of 2025, South Korea’s rose about 80 percent, Singapore’s increased 40 percent and Japan’s climbed nearly 20 percent.
The burden of the supply crunch fell more heavily on poorer countries without reserves. Bangladesh and Sri Lanka rationed fuel. Others closed schools and offices and restricted air-conditioning use. In wealthier economies, the effects were visible but contained: U.K. fuel sales fell in April as people avoided driving; some European and American airlines trimmed flight schedules due to higher jet-fuel costs; a Japanese snack maker switched to black-and-white packaging because of oil-related ink shortages.
Douglas noted that reopening the Strait of Hormuz as part of a peace deal between the United States and Iran would ease the energy crisis that has sapped economic growth and fueled inflation worldwide. The analysis concluded that the collective adjustment — from strategic stockpiles and rerouted pipelines to energy efficiency gains and the AI boom — kept a potentially catastrophic supply disruption from becoming a full-blown global recession.