{"id":675547,"date":"2026-03-23T08:05:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T08:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/675547\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T08:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T08:05:13","slug":"international-energy-agency-head-says-global-economy-faces-major-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/675547\/","title":{"rendered":"International Energy Agency head says global economy faces major threat"},"content":{"rendered":"

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) \u2014 The head of the International Energy Agency said Monday that the global economy faces a \u201cmajor, major threat\u201d because of the Iran war. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo country will be immune to the effects of this crisis if it continues to go in this direction,\u201d Fatih Birol said at Australia\u2019s National Press Club in Canberra on Monday. <\/p>\n

The crisis in the Middle \u2060East, he said, has had a worse impact on oil than the two oil shocks of the 1970s combined, and a worse effect on gas than the Russia-Ukraine war.<\/p>\n

Israel launched a new wave of attacks early Monday against Tehran. U.S. President Donald Trump<\/a> also warned the United States will \u201cobliterate\u201d Iran\u2019s power plants<\/a> if Tehran doesn\u2019t fully open the Strait of Hormuz<\/a> within 48 hours. That prompted Iran to say it would respond to any such strike with attacks on U.S. and Israeli energy and infrastructure assets.<\/p>\n

Trump is facing increasing pressure at home to secure the strait as oil prices soar<\/a>. <\/p>\n

One major fear is that the war could knock out oil and gas production<\/a> in the Middle East for a long time, which would mean high prices could last a while and cause inflation to rip higher around the world. The U.S. stock market has a history of bouncing back relatively quickly from past conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, as long as oil prices don\u2019t stay too high for too long.<\/p>\n

Iran on Monday renewed strikes on its Gulf neighbors and threatened to start hitting their power plants. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe situation is very severe,\u201d Birol said in Australia.<\/p>\n

The oil crises of 1973 and 1979, he said, lost together 10 million barrels per day, causing \u201cmajor economic problems around the world, the recessions. And today, only as of today, we lost 11 million barrels per day \u2014 so more than two major oil shocks put together.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, he said, the gas markets, especially in Europe, \u201clost about 75 billion cubic meters, 75BCM. And as of now, as a result of this crisis, we lost about 140BCM, almost twice (as much).\u201d <\/p>\n

Birol said 40 energy assets in nine countries across the region were \u201cseverely or very severely damaged.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the vital arteries of the global economy, such as petrochemical, such as fertilizers, such as sulfur, such as helium \u2014 their trade is all interrupted, which would have serious consequences for the global economy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said the International Energy Agency, \u201cin order to comfort the markets,\u201d earlier released 400 million barrels of oil, \u201cwhich is historic. We have never released so much oil to the markets. … The single most important solution to this problem is opening up the Hormuz Strait as things stand now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The official added that he was consulting with governments in Europe, Asia, North America and the Middle East about the prospect of releasing further stockpiled oil. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe will see, we will look at the markets,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it is necessary, of course, we will do it, but we will look at the conditions, we will analyze, assess the market and discuss with our member countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP writer Foster Klug contributed to this report from Tokyo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) \u2014 The head of the International Energy Agency said Monday that the global economy…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":675548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[3881,4740,64,4745,69,79,10102,57,83,3461,6087,99,3462,3657,2053,67,132,68,96,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-675547","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-ap-top-news","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-canberra","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-economy","14":"tag-energy-industry","15":"tag-general-news","16":"tag-iran","17":"tag-iran-government","18":"tag-iran-war","19":"tag-israel","20":"tag-israel-government","21":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","22":"tag-tehran","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-war-and-unrest","27":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116277459538105913","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}