Energy Gang · Wood Mackenzie

The mother of all disruptions. What the war with Iran means for energy.

March 31, 2026·1 hr 13 min·6 clips

Amy Myers-Jaffe declares the Iran war worse than the 1973 oil embargo — and explains why in specific numbers.

The cold open is deliberately grave. The panel treats the crisis as larger than 1973, less like a plain oil shock and more like a hit to fossil fuels, shipping nerves, and market confidence at once. Hormuz keeps pulling the conversation back. A guest says Trump no longer gets to decide when the war ends, because the Iranians now have leverage. The answer, at least on this episode, is infrastructure. Not cheap infrastructure, necessarily. Redundant infrastructure. Bypass pipelines and terminals can take power away from a chokepoint. The examples get specific: an east west route, the UAE pipeline to Fujairah, and the Fujairah project that markets once mocked but now looks harder to laugh off. The panel argues the bill should be shared by Japan, Korea, Australia, China, and the United States, rather than left to Gulf producers. Iraq and Kuwait enter the picture through possible routes via Turkey and Kurdistan. Qatar comes up as the panel talks through LNG capacity on the Red Sea through Saudi territory. Then water raises the stakes. Attacks on Saudi desalination plants could force an evacuation crisis, not just push up commodity prices, though Saudi water stockpiles offer some cushion. The fossil fuel paradox sits there unresolved. Even after huge renewable additions, one speaker says fossil fuels still make up roughly 80% of United States energy, as they did in 1980. The episode does not pretend there is an easy exit from oil and gas. It asks whether a shock this ugly might speed one up.

As heard by us

A sharp Energy Gang episode on Iran, Hormuz, and the infrastructure that only looks excessive until the crisis arrives.

Energy Gang treats a war with Iran as more than another oil-price scare. The episode frames it as a stress test for a world still heavily dependent on fossil fuels, with the Strait of Hormuz at the center of the risk.

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Why you'd press play

If you want a sober read on the energy shock, Hormuz leverage, and hard infrastructure, press play.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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