Fertilizers, medicines, sulfur, copper, nickel… The repercussions of the war will be felt in areas beyond gas stations.
On Monday, the price of Brent and WTI crude oil, international market benchmarks, surpassed the 100 dollar threshold for the first time since 2022, although it fell to less than 95 dollars on the same day. In comparison, on February 27, the day before hostilities began in Iran, the price was around $70 per barrel.
This increase in fuel prices occurred mainly due to the virtual increase in maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuzafter the Iranian government threatened ships that tried to cross this waterway, through which around 20% of the world’s oil and gas passes.
But although the rise in oil and gasoline prices was clearly expected, as the conflict involves Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, experts predict that its repercussions will be felt in other areas of the economy and in different parts of the world.
1. Food
The current conflict is affecting major fertilizer exporters. Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are four of the largest global exporters of nitrogen fertilizersaccording to data from the Economic Complexity Observatory.
This type of fertilizer is produced from natural gas and is used in crops that guarantee about half of the world’s food supply.
Although most of the region’s fertilizer producers continued to operate despite the war, the Qatar Energyone of the main urea producers, had to suspend its operations after gas supplies were interrupted last week due to Iranian drone and missile attacks.
Furthermore, the benefits of these companies’ continued operations are limited by the fact that they are unable to export their fertilizers due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a third of the world’s fertilizer supply passes, according to Bloomberg.
Added to this is the fact that Iran is also an exporter of fertilizers and China’s decision, adopted at the end of 2025, to suspend exports of phosphate fertilizers and severely restrict urea exports until August 2026, with the aim of guaranteeing supply to local farmers.
According to the Economic Complexity Observatory, China is the world’s largest exporter of nitrogen fertilizers. As a result, fertilizer prices have already started to rise significantly.
At the port of New Orleans, the main entry point for these products into the USA, the fertilizer prices soared from $516 per metric ton to $683 during the first week of the price war.
The situation arises precisely at the time of year when farmers in the Northern Hemisphere are preparing for sowing, which further complicates the scenario. According to data from the Federation of Agricultural Bureaus (FAR), 25% of the country’s fertilizer imports occur between March and April each year.
“This couldn’t have happened at a worse time,” farmer Harry Ott, who grows cotton, corn and soybeans in South Carolina, USA, told the BBC.
Analysts predict that, if the conflict continues, consumers will begin to feel the impact on food prices within one to three monthsfacing higher costs and shortages as harvests will be smaller without the necessary amount of fertilizers. This situation can translate into hunger for the poorest countries and people.
“The sudden rise in food and fuel prices, driven by the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, could have a domino effect which will worsen hunger among vulnerable populations in the region and other parts of the world”, warned the UN World Food Programme, in a statement.
2. Medications
The ongoing war in the Middle East is also affecting the global supply chain for medicines and pharmaceuticals.
This is mainly due to the attacks suffered by the Dubaian important logistics center in the global pharmaceutical sector. The most populous city in the United Arab Emirates is home to the busiest international airport in the world, which welcomed around 95 million passengers in 2025. This airport is also an important cargo distribution center for medicines and other pharmaceutical products, especially those that require cold chain maintenance.
The pharmaceutical industry in Indiathe world’s largest supplier of generic medicines and responsible for 60% of global vaccine production, according to data from the Indian Department of Commerce, has a strategic distribution point at Dubai airport.
Emirates airline has a cargo terminal called Emirates SkyPharma, built specifically to handle temperature-sensitive pharmaceutical shipments. Dubai also has the Port of Jebel Ali, considered the ninth busiest cargo port in the world and the largest in the Middle East.
According to the Jebel Ali Port Authority (JAFZA), around 400 pharmaceutical and healthcare companies from 60 countries operate in the port. JAFZA highlights that, in 2020, 50% of Dubai’s pharmaceutical and healthcare products, valued at US$21.8 billion, passed through this port.
Indian pharmaceutical exports also transit through this port, from where the products go to other countries in the Persian Gulf, Africa, Europe and other destinations.
Iranian military strikes caused damage to both Dubai’s port and airport, disrupting normal operations due to the conflict. Air cargo transport is crucial for the pharmaceutical industry, especially for high-value shipments or those that require urgent delivery or temperature control.
Although there are some alternative routes to Dubai, many have less capacity to handle these cargo volumes, require additional travel days and involve higher costs, which May increase price and affect availability of these products. According to India’s Department of Commerce, the country’s pharmaceutical industry exported products to 200 countries around the world, with the US, UK, Brazil, France and South Africa being the main destinations.
Dubai’s airport and port facilities simultaneously function as storage and re-export centers for these medicines, thus playing a central role in the global pharmaceutical sector.
3. Electronics
The distribution of chemical elements such as sulfur and raw materials such as aluminumwhich play a key role in industrial production, is also being affected by the war.
Countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and Iran are among the main exporters of sulfura byproduct of oil and gas refining.
According to the United States Geological Survey, 24% of global sulfur production originates in the Middle East.
Much of this production is used in fertilizers, but it also has important uses in extraction of minerals and metals such as copper and nickelessential for the production of household appliances, vehicles, electrical networks, semiconductors, batteries and materials such as stainless steel, among many other applications.
In this sector, the effects of the war are already being felt. During the first week of the conflict, nickel mining companies in Indonesia — the country responsible for more than 50% of the world’s nickel — announced production cuts due to supply disruptions from Gulf countries, which supply 75% of the sulfur used by these companies.
As Reuters warned, some copper producers in Africa are likely to face a similar situation. “A supply dispute would pit Indonesian nickel refiners against African copper mining companies, and both against fertilizer makers around the world, who are also looking for substitutes for Middle Eastern sulfur,” the agency noted.
As sulfuric acid — produced with sulfur — is one of the most important components for the manufacture of semiconductors and chips, disruptions in the supply of this chemical They can affect the production of countless products considered essential in modern life, such as smartphones, computers, memory cards, vehicles and countless electronic devices used in homes, companies and factories.
This is not the first time the world has faced such a situation. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the chip shortage affected both the production volumes of these devices and the final price that consumers had to pay. This time, there is an additional factor: the high demand for chips by companies that develop and implement artificial intelligence (AI) models.
