Bianca Botes, Director at Citadel Global

The impact of the war cannot be measured based on headlines alone. While the news may focus on the oil price and currency moves, there is a far more silent effect that is worth discussing; one that will have a far longer impact than the shorter-term pain of higher oil prices.

Glass

A glass furnace cannot be switched off between shifts. It runs continuously at around 1,500 degrees Celsius, and natural gas accounts for roughly 74% of energy input across European glass manufacturing. O-I Glass, the world’s leading glass manufacturer, with 68 plants across 19 countries, has watched its share price fall by about a third since February. The company walked into the United States (US)-Iran war already carrying a $150 million step-up in European energy costs from expiring long-term gas hedges, meaning it had a sudden increase in operational expenses. While glass rarely features in energy market commentary, this example makes the point that narrow coverage on the oil price ignores the fact that energy prices underpin every input cost and the impact of these costs is carried through industries and supply chains that most people would never connect to the conflict in the Persian Gulf.

Fertilizer

Fertilizer is a more direct and more urgent victim to the conflict. Natural gas is the primary feedstock for ammonia, the base compound for most nitrogen fertilizers and roughly 30% of the world’s fertilizer shipments transit the Strait of Hormuz. Constrained supply and elevated gas prices feed into crop nutrient costs, and those costs take time to clear. The reason being that planting decisions made under limiting high input cost conditions determine food supply months later. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has flagged that the conflict will keep global natural gas supply tight for at least two years, making food-price inflation a medium-term certainty, not simply a near-term risk.

Helium

Helium is barely being tracked, yet the Gulf is a meaningful source of global supply. Helium is used in MRI machines, semiconductor manufacturing and data centre cooling infrastructure. A sustained constraint will not make headlines, but it adds real cost and friction to chip production and medical services at a time when neither can absorb much pressure.

Aluminium

The Gulf’s role in aluminium is consistently underestimated. The region accounts for roughly one sixth of global exports and supply disruption feeds simultaneously into the automotive, construction and packaging sectors, which are already navigating elevated input costs from several directions.

Petrochemicals

In addition, petrochemicals, made from oil and gas, are key ingredients for plastics, detergents, synthetic fabrics, adhesives and pharmaceuticals. When both are expensive and constrained, the cost of goods with no obvious connection to an energy market starts moving. The link between a Hormuz disruption and the manufacturing cost of soap or pharmaceutical packaging is real, even if it takes several months to appear in a margin report.

India’s dilemma

India offers one of the cleaner pictures of how a sustained oil shock moves through an entire economy. The world’s third-largest oil importer has seen its import bill expand sharply as Gulf supply has tightened. The rupee has fallen to record lows of Rs95.6/$ and is the worst-performing currency in Asia so far in 2026. The Reserve Bank of India has intervened aggressively, as foreign exchange reserves have dropped to $690.7 billion and the central bank has capped banks’ daily open foreign exchange positions at $100 million. Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has publicly urged citizens to stop buying gold, India’s third-largest import category at $72 billion annually and to cut overseas travel as the country tries to keep dollars from exiting the country. These are signals of genuine balance of payments stress.

South Africa’s food prices

For South Africa (SA), the agricultural dimension compounds an already stretched picture. Around 98% of SA’s agro-chemicals and 80% of fertilizer and machinery are imported. Higher shipping costs, a weaker rand and elevated fertilizer prices represent a simultaneous three-way squeeze on farming inputs – one that will take several growing seasons to price through to the food basket. The farmer absorbs it first, but the consumer’s prices follow, although much later and without much warning.

The long-term effect

Coverage of this conflict has primarily focused on crude prices and currency moves. While those matter, the more durable story is in the industries nobody is watching – glass plants running at a loss, the fertilizer supply chain tightening and the helium constraint nobody budgeted for. The effects accumulate across supply chains that were not designed for this and they reach the end of the chain long after the original event has stopped making news.

ENDS