Middle East Crisis In Focus: Beyond The Binary Of ‘Winners And Losers’ During An Oil Upheaval

With the eruption of conflict across the Middle East pulling attention once more towards the region’s oil and natural gas network, particularly after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, many have discussed who stands to gain and who stands to lose. The conflict has redrawn risk and exposure maps in real time, with growing confusion over the status of the strait and oscillating government sanctions. Moving beyond the binary perspective of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’, risk leaders must take note of which states can absorb disruption without locking themselves into deeper operational fragilities. Beneficiaries will be the states that can capitalize on short-term volatility, rather than just emerging unscathed.

The immediate failures

Iran: Although the regime itself has so far endured against the odds, Iran remains the clearest ruin of the conflict. Its civilian and export infrastructure continues to be destroyed and its economy remains on the brink of collapse. The result in an implosion in state capacity, and a much weaker ability to stabilize or absorb the social consequences of prolonged conflict. The bombing of Kharg Island has shifted direct pressure onto the state’s revenue engine: the island handles around 90% of Iran’s oil exports, bringing Tehran’s core fiscal lifeline visibly inside the conflict zone. Indeed, the regime’s offer to provide safe passage through Hormuz – on the conditions that ships are not linked to the US or Israel and that their oil is traded in Chinese yuan – is less a viable stabilizing measure than an experiment in coercive diplomacy.

The UAE: The UAE should theoretically be one of the Gulf’s more resilient exporters because Fujairah offers an alternative outlet, but drone attacks have repeatedly disrupted ADNOC loading at Fujairah, weakening this advantage. The state’s bypass infrastructure appears to be attracting risk, not neutralizing it; the very assets designed to preserve export continuity are becoming focal points for disruption. As a result, the UAE can capture neither the full upside of higher prices nor the full protection of route diversification.

The immediate beneficiaries

Russia: Russia’s war economy has, by most measures, endured surprisingly well given the mass of Western sanctions to hit the country since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This is not to say the model is healthy, but its ability to monetize external energy shocks has repeatedly buffered the country’s finances. The war in Iran has reinforced and exploited this pattern: emergency market management has seen the US temporarily lift some restrictions on Russian oil already at sea, and it use of Baltic ports provides relative stability. While this offers a short-term boost, it does little to solve the immense structural challenges facing the Russian economy. Risk leaders should be wary of building a strategy on the stream of apparent Russian ‘wins’.

Brazil: One of the clearest beneficiaries, Brazil has been able to further capitalize on the ongoing pivot away from Middle Eastern barrels towards those from the Americas and Africa. With crude oil output reaching a new record in 2025, coupled with Petrobras’s low breakeven point, Brazil is positioned to deepen its foothold in Asian markets.

A note on China
China sits in a more ambiguous position. In terms of its objective energy market, exposure is materializing domestically in the form of a far more defensive reserve posture, with Beijing rejecting Sinopec’s request to tap 95 million barrels of commercial reserves. But the country still retains more breathing room than other Asian importers because it has so many coal and gas-based alternatives to fall back on. Diplomatically, China’s neutral stance may still hinder closer Gulf ties if it leans too visibly towards Iranian-linked shipping carveouts, prompting tougher screening of Chinese shipping partners. The danger is that China’s immense scale as a player may obscure these second-order risks for many firms.

What this means for risk leaders
Risk leaders must be wary of binary analyses of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ if not coupled with strong geopolitical risk intelligence across a vast operational matrix. In most cases, economic and geopolitical shock absorbers are finite: what can be perceived as a win in the early days of a crisis is often underwritten by emergency rerouting options or short-term diplomatic flexibility. Instead, decision-makers must adopt the granular view of energy resilience that can only come from proactive intelligence.

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