Oil Buyers Battered by the Iran War Energy Crisis Race to Build Buffers

Rodela Romero was attending an event at her church in northern Manila when her phone rang. It was a local reporter asking her to comment on what was being described to her as a nightmare scenario.

Ms. Romero, who oversees the oil industry at the Philippine Department of Energy, had been following news of the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran that day in late February. Now, the reporter told Ms. Romero, the Strait of Hormuz — the vital maritime choke point through which the Philippines imports enormous amounts of crude oil — had been shut.

“We import almost 100 percent of our petroleum products,” said Ms. Romero, 64. “We’re so vulnerable,” she recalled thinking at the time.

In the ensuing weeks, government officials scrambled to secure supply from alternative producers, at great cost. Gasoline prices doubled and diesel prices tripled, triggering transit strikes in Manila and a sudden spike in inflation that experts warned could push more than a million Filipinos into poverty.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/21/business/asia-strategic-oil-reserves.html