Figures updated · Text reviewed · By the Riftrate team · How the index is built
Why some wars move oil and others do not
Oil reacts to barrels, not to headlines. A war moves the price when it can take oil off the market, raise the cost of shipping it, or trigger sanctions on a producer. A war far from producers and sea lanes can be devastating for the people involved and still leave oil almost unchanged.
Three places matter more than any others:
- The Strait of Hormuz, between Iran and Oman. About 20 million barrels a day passed through it in 2024, roughly 20% of the world’s oil consumption and more than a quarter of seaborne oil trade, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Saudi and Emirati pipelines can bypass it for only about 2.6 million barrels a day.
- Bab el-Mandeb and the Red Sea, the route to the Suez Canal. After the Houthi attacks on ships from late 2023, oil flows through the strait fell from 8.7 million barrels a day in 2023 to 4.0 million in the first eight months of 2024, as tankers sailed around Africa instead (EIA).
- Russia, one of the world’s largest oil exporters. The invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the sanctions that followed caused one of the largest oil shocks in the library.
Riftrate tracks these risks every hour with two market indices: energy supply risk (armed violence in oil and gas producers, weighted by output) and oil shipping-route risk (armed violence around Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, Suez, Malacca, the Turkish Straits and Panama, weighted by oil flows).
What Brent did after every war and attack since 2018
Each move runs from the last close before the event. In a normal week, Brent already moves between -9.2% to +9.3% nine times out of ten, so “how unusual” compares each move with every 5-day move of the previous three years.
| Date | Event | Next session | After 5 sessions | After 20 sessions | How unusual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 February 2026 | Iran war | +8.3% | +34.2% | +70.3% | bigger than 100% of 5-day moves |
| 3 January 2026 | US intervention in Venezuela | +1.6% | +5.1% | +16.6% | bigger than 78% of 5-day moves |
| 13 June 2025 | Twelve-Day War | +7.3% | +13.5% | -0.6% | bigger than 100% of 5-day moves |
| 7 May 2025 | India strikes Pakistan | -3.3% | +7.3% | +6.9% | bigger than 89% of 5-day moves |
| 13 April 2024 | Iran strikes Israel | -2.4% | -5.5% | -10.7% | bigger than 75% of 5-day moves |
| 12 January 2024 | US and UK strike the Houthis | -0.4% | +1.0% | +3.5% | bigger than 16% of 5-day moves |
| 7 October 2023 | October 7 attack | +4.0% | +7.4% | -0.4% | bigger than 86% of 5-day moves |
| 2 August 2022 | Pelosi visits Taiwan, China drills | +0.4% | -2.5% | -6.4% | bigger than 40% of 5-day moves |
| 24 February 2022 | Russia invades Ukraine | +2.0% | +19.8% | +28.4% | bigger than 96% of 5-day moves |
| 15 August 2021 | Fall of Kabul | -1.2% | -7.6% | +2.9% | bigger than 85% of 5-day moves |
| 27 September 2020 | War in Nagorno-Karabakh | +1.7% | -7.1% | -0.5% | bigger than 84% of 5-day moves |
| 3 January 2020 | Soleimani killed | +3.0% | -0.7% | -13.9% | bigger than 13% of 5-day moves |
| 14 September 2019 | Attack on Saudi oil facilities | +11.7% | +6.5% | -1.1% | bigger than 89% of 5-day moves |
| 14 April 2018 | Western strikes on Syria | -1.5% | +2.0% | +6.8% | bigger than 30% of 5-day moves |
The largest rise in the library followed Iran war (28 February 2026): Brent moved +34.2% in 5 trading days.
Data: Brent crude, FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Past data, not a forecast. Not investment advice.
The average path after a war
On average, Brent moved +5.2% after 5 trading days and +7.3% after 20 days across 14 wars and attacks. Averages hide very different cases: a spike that fades within days when supply is not hit, and a lasting shift when it is.
Correlation, not proof
Week by week since 2018, changes in world tension and in oil show a correlation of +0.17 over 451 weeks. Oil also moves with OPEC+ decisions, the global economy and the dollar, so a rise in tension does not by itself mean a rise in oil. The clearest evidence comes from surprise attacks on oil itself, such as the attack on Saudi oil facilities in September 2019. See how to tell correlation from causation.
Frequently asked questions
Why do oil prices go up during a war?
Because traders fear that oil will be lost, blocked at sea or hit by sanctions. Prices rise most when the war involves a large producer or a key shipping route, such as the Strait of Hormuz or the Red Sea.
What happens to oil prices if the Strait of Hormuz is closed?
No full closure has happened in modern times, so there is no past data to measure it. About a fifth of the world’s oil consumption passes through the strait and only a small part could be rerouted by pipeline, which is why any threat to it is watched closely.
Do oil prices stay high after a war starts?
Often not, unless supply is durably cut. After many events in the library, Brent gave back most of its first move within a few weeks. The clearest exceptions were the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the Iran war in 2026, when Brent kept rising for weeks.
How can I follow the risk to oil supply?
The oil shipping-route risk and energy supply risk indices are updated every hour, and the Brent oil page shows every crisis since 2018.