The European Central Bank published a blog post examining how a closure of the Strait of Hormuz and resulting disruption to Gulf exports could affect the global economy. Using scenario analysis, the post finds that physical shortages of energy and key intermediate goods could weaken growth and raise inflation beyond the effects already captured through higher global energy prices. In the ECB staff’s static estimates, persistent shortages of Gulf energy goods alone could put up to 3% of euro area production at risk, while the largest output losses would fall on more exposed Asian economies. The analysis compares two scenarios: one in which Gulf exports of energy goods are fully and persistently disrupted and domestic buffers such as strategic reserves are unavailable, and a broader scenario that also disrupts industrial and other goods such as fertilisers and helium. Exposure to Gulf energy imports is much higher in Asia than in the euro area, the United Kingdom and the United States, and vulnerabilities are concentrated in energy-intensive sectors including petrochemicals, aluminium, fertilisers and semiconductors. Under the static framework, output losses could reach up to 11% in South Korea, around 8% in India and around 7% in Japan in the energy disruption scenario. For the euro area, losses range from 0.4% where substitution is easier to up to 3% where adjustment is limited. The blog also uses a dynamic model to assess medium-term growth and inflation effects after stripping out the energy price shock already embedded in the severe Middle East scenario of the June 2026 Eurosystem staff macroeconomic projections. In that framework, energy disruptions lower GDP growth in 2026 and 2027 by 0.3 percentage points in the euro area and 0.1 percentage points in the United States in both years, while China sees declines of 0.8 and 1.1 percentage points. Inflation peaks in 2027 at 0.9 percentage points higher in the euro area, 0.3 percentage points in the United States and 2.3 percentage points in China. When non-energy input disruptions are added, euro area GDP growth is lowered by around 0.4 percentage points in 2026 and inflation rises by 1.3 percentage points at the 2027 peak.
European Central Bank2026-07-02
European Central Bank blog estimates Gulf energy supply disruption could put up to 3% of euro area production at risk
An ECB blog post finds that disruption to Gulf exports through the Strait of Hormuz could create physical shortages that hit growth and lift inflation beyond the effect of higher energy prices. Persistent Gulf energy shortages alone could put up to 3% of euro area production at risk, with larger output losses in Asia. In the ECB staff’s dynamic estimates, combined energy and non-energy disruptions would lower euro area GDP growth by around 0.4 percentage points in 2026 and raise inflation by 1.3 percentage points at the 2027 peak.