Iran Conflict Triggers Logistics Shock Across Global Trade

Client Alert

March 4, 2026

Supply Chain Risk Alert

On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel conducted nationwide strikes across Iran that reportedly killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, triggering immediate succession uncertainty and rapid regional escalation. Tehran retaliated with missile and drone attacks targeting Israel, U.S. military installations across the Gulf, and regional energy and logistics infrastructure.

The Strait of Hormuz, the primary maritime gateway for Gulf energy exports, is operating under severe commercial constraints. Major carriers have suspended transits, war-risk insurance is tightening, and commercial traffic has fallen sharply. At the same time, widespread airspace closures across Tel Aviv, Tehran, Doha, Kuwait City, Manama, Baghdad, Erbil, Damascus, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi have forced large-scale rerouting of both passenger and cargo flights.

On March 2, U.S. President Trump stated that the conflict could last four to five weeks or longer, a timeframe that materially increases supply chain risk.

Where Are Supply Chain Risks Concentrated?

This conflict is creating a dual maritime chokepoint shock across global trade corridors.

Strait of Hormuz (Persian Gulf gateway): Commercial traffic has fallen sharply as major carriers suspend transits and insurers tighten war-risk terms. According to the International Energy Agency, roughly 20 million barrels per day of crude and refined products transit Hormuz, along with approximately 112 bcm of LNG (~20% of global LNG trade) annually. The vast majority of Qatari LNG exports depend on this corridor.
Red Sea / Bab al-Mandab (Suez access): The Red Sea corridor remains disrupted as major carriers delay resumption of Suez transits and continue rerouting vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, extending transit times and tightening capacity. The Suez route historically underpins roughly 12–15% of global seaborne trade, making sustained disruption a material risk to Europe–Asia container flows.

Critically, bypass options are limited. Existing Saudi and UAE pipelines can redirect only a portion of normal volumes, and there is no viable maritime alternative for ports inside the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, sustained Cape diversions constrain vessel availability and extend global transit cycles.

On the aviation side, multiple Gulf airspaces have been restricted or closed, disrupting critical passenger and belly cargo hubs including Dubai (DXB), Doha (DOH), and Abu Dhabi (AUH).

Cyber risk further compounds physical disruption. Agencies have warned that Iranian-affiliated actors may conduct disruptive cyber campaigns, including denial-of-service and infrastructure targeting, during periods of escalation. Recent drone strikes reportedly damaged multiple cloud data centers in the region, resulting in service outages and degraded availability for enterprise customers. Even organizations without a regional footprint may face spillover risk through globally connected logistics, cloud, and digital platforms.

This is not simply a shipping delay event; it is a multi-domain disruption spanning maritime corridors, air cargo networks, energy markets, and digital infrastructure.

Duration will determine the broader economic impact. China, the world’s largest crude importer, increased imports to a record 11.6 million barrels per day in 2025 and has accumulated approximately 1.2 billion barrels in storage, roughly 100 days of net import coverage. Independent tanker tracking cited in that analysis indicates that sanctioned crude from Iran and Venezuela accounted for over one-fifth of China’s imports last year. While current stockpiles provide short-term resilience, a prolonged disruption of Gulf-linked flows, particularly alongside constrained Venezuelan supply, would place increasing pressure on Chinese refining throughput and industrial output, with potential spillover effects across global manufacturing supply chains.

Exiger Insights

Industry mapping of unlading flows across the affected Gulf corridor shows heavy concentration in Oil & Gas, Metals & Mining, and Chemicals, underscoring the scale of energy-linked trade moving through the region.

According to the International Energy Agency, roughly 20 million barrels per day of crude and refined products transit the Strait of Hormuz. This represents hundreds of billions of dollars in annual energy flows and approximately one-fifth of global LNG trade when including natural gas volumes.

Beyond hydrocarbons, Exiger’s 2025 shipment records identify over 14 million TEUs of containerized cargo loaded at major Gulf ports operating within the affected corridor. These shipments include chemicals, polymers, metals, fertilizers, construction materials, and consumer goods, demonstrating that exposure extends far beyond energy alone.

Shipment value data further shows that Gulf-origin trade is concentrated among a small number of exporting countries, led by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, followed by Iraq, Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait. This concentration reinforces the structural dependence of global supply chains on a limited set of Gulf producers across energy and industrial inputs.

Top Countries of Lading by Value

(Source: Exiger) TOP PORTS OF LADING BY SHIPMENT VALUE

When hydrocarbons are removed from the dataset, shipment concentration remains significant across core industrial and consumer categories, including:

Plastics and polymers
Iron and steel products
Fertilizers
Cereals and rice
Paper and packaging materials
Textiles and apparel
Aluminum and related articles

This indicates that disruption risk extends well beyond crude and LNG into industrial materials, construction inputs, manufacturing feedstocks, and agricultural commodities. Energy prices are rising, but the broader risk is compounded supply chain disruption and price volatility across metals, chemicals, fertilizers, packaging, and consumer goods.

Industry mapping of unlading flows shows concentration in Oil & Gas, Metals & Mining, Chemicals, and a category labeled “Banks.” Disaggregation of that category indicates it largely represents trading entities and import/export intermediaries handling a broad mix of physical goods rather than shipments of currency.

Taken together, the data indicates concentration risk across energy, heavy industry, manufacturing inputs, and food supply chains, reinforcing the multi-domain nature of the disruption.

Industry Impacts: Where Risk Surfaces First

Operationally, these concentrations translate into risk across five areas:

Maritime logistics and container capacity
RISKS: WEEKS OF DELAY, CONGESTION RISK
Large ocean carriers are suspending bookings, rerouting vessels, and adding conflict/war-risk surcharges, moves that effectively remove capacity from the system and extend transit times as ships divert around the Cape of Good Hope.
Energy, chemicals, and petrochemical-linked manufacturing
RISKS: COST SHOCK, AVAILABILITY RISK
The operating environment is now directly impacting energy infrastructure: Ras Tanura (a ~550,000 bpd refinery and key export terminal) was reportedly shut after drone attacks, underscoring the risk of rapid price volatility and knock-on cost increases across transport and petrochemical feedstocks.
Air freight, time-sensitive and cold-chain goods
RISKS: CAPACITY COMPRESSION
Air cargo capacity has dropped materially week-over-week (reported at ~18%), and major integrators and carriers have suspended flights across multiple Middle East markets, tightening lift and increasing delay/cost risk for pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, perishables, and other time-critical SKUs.
Technology and advanced manufacturing
RISKS: JUST-IN-TIME FRAGILITY
Longer ocean routings plus reduced air uplift increase lead-time uncertainty for high-value components and just-in-time supply chains, often showing up first as missed production windows, expediting costs, and inventory imbalances.
Agriculture and fertilizer-linked inputs
RISKS: LAGGED DOWNSTREAM EFFECTS
Disruption risk extends beyond energy: fertilizer and other bulk commodities moving through the region face delay and cost pressure, which can cascade into higher input costs and later-season food price effects if constraints persist.

What Organizations Should Do Now

Quantify exposure immediately.
Map shipments, supplier nodes, and revenue-critical flows tied to Gulf ports, Hormuz-dependent energy inputs, and Red Sea/Suez trade lanes.
Identify concentration risk.
Determine where single ports, suppliers, or corridors represent disproportionate operational exposure.
Stress-test energy and freight sensitivity.
Model margin impact under sustained oil, LNG, and freight volatility scenarios.
Elevate cyber and infrastructure resilience.
Assume increased cyber activity targeting critical infrastructure and exposed systems. Validate immutable backups, confirm failover readiness, elevate monitoring thresholds, and ensure incident response teams are prepared for ransomware or denial-of-service scenarios.
Align governance.
Ensure procurement, logistics, compliance, and executive leadership operate from a unified exposure view with clear mitigation authority.

How Exiger Can Help

The 1Exiger platform helps you understand, respond to, and prevent disruptions.

Network and Trade Flow Mapping

Maps your multi-tier supplier network and overlays trade lanes, ports, and critical corridors to quantify exposure fast.

Dependency and Concentration Analysis 

Identifies single points of failure across suppliers, sites, ports, and routes, and ranks where concentration creates outsized operational risk.

Scenario Modeling and Sensitivity Testing

Runs what-if scenarios for energy and freight volatility to estimate impact and compare mitigation options.

Third-Party Cyber Risk Monitoring 

Continuously monitors cyber exposure and risk signals across vendors and critical service providers, software products and components, prioritizing where resilience actions matter most.

Unified Risk Governance and Response Workflows 

Creates a shared “war room” view with ownership, escalation, and tracked mitigation actions across procurement, logistics, compliance, and leadership.