Both global oil and gas benchmark prices continued to spike upwards as fear of a supply gauntlet continued to mount, as tensions continue to soar in West Asia between the United States and Israel, against Iran.

The trends were largely in line with expectations about an upward price shock as Tehran called to close the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday (February 28, 2026), which accounts for approximately one-fifth of the global crude oil flow, following the death of their supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Analysts at S&P Global Commodities at Sea (CAS) had noted that activities in the strait had fallen by 40-50% as of 7:30 p.m. (UTC) on February 28.

At the time of writing (6:35 p.m. IST), Brent Crude futures (for May) were trading more than 8.6% higher at $79.18 per barrel, nearly breaching a more than one-year high. In fact, intraday, the futures had briefly jumped about 12% to $81.5 for every barrel.

Further, WTI crude at the time of writing rose further intraday and was trading 8.15% higher at $72.51 per barrel.

Essential to also note, from India’s perspective, maritime analytics provider Kpler noted in a recent blogpost, “Asian energy security is most exposed, with India and China facing acute supply risks across crude, LPG, and LNG.” It held India and China as the “dominant buyers” of the crude transiting from the route.

From a global perspective, an added element on Monday (March 2) to the already-anticipated upward price shock was Tehran’s attacks on oil and gas infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Earlier in the day, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Energy confirmed to local press about an incident of “limited fire” at Aramco’s Ras Tanura refinery. This was following Tehran’s drone strikes.

More prominently, though, QatarEnergy announced it would cease production of liquified natural gas (LNG) and associated products at its operating facilities in Ras Laffan Industrial City and Mesaieed Industrial City. For context about the impact, the state-owned entity is the largest producer of LNG in the world with an annual total production capacity of 77 million tonnes (MT).

The biggest relaying impact of the cessation stands in Europe, which heavily replaced Russian gas with that from Doha following the former’s actions in Ukraine.

With Monday’s (March 2) chain of events, Dutch TTF Natural Gas Futures (April contract) rose approximately 47.4% to €47.1 per megawatt-hour (MWh). Meanwhile, the U.S.-based Henry Hub Natural Gas, which is more insulated from the shocks because of domestic production, was up 6.23% at $3.037.