Asia faces the gravest fallout from the war on Iran and is confronting a major energy crisis, a global maritime analytics firm warned in an interview with AFP on Tuesday.
“We think Asia will, for now, be the ones suffering the most,” Kpler president Jean Maynier told AFP at the company’s offices in Singapore.
He said the continent did not have enough energy resources of its own to cover the gap, adding: “It will not be enough in China, it will not be enough to cover in big countries like the Philippines or Indonesia. So it’s a real energy crisis.”
Maynier said the impact of Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz was already visible in countries like the Philippines, where the government has declared a national energy emergency.
“It’s really bad for Asia and we are not optimistic if the event continues,” said Maynier.
“We hope at some point that politicians will find a solution.”
Brussels-based Kpler, which was founded in 2014 and owns the MarineTraffic website, is considered one of the foremost data analytics and ship-tracking agencies in the world.
It has been keeping a close eye on the Strait of Hormuz since the United States and Israel’s February 28 attack on Iran.
Seventeen commodities vessels crossed the the strait over the weekend, 12 of them on Saturday, making it one of the busiest days for crossings since March 1, according to Kpler.
As of 1700 GMT on Monday, commodities vessels had made just 196 crossings of the waterway this month, a huge decrease from before the war.
Of those, 120 were by oil tankers and gas carriers and most were travelling east out of the strait.
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