RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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x whatsapp-stroke copylink google Add Al Jazeera on Google info By John Power Published On 31 Aug 2026 31 Aug 2026 Six months since the United States and Israel launched their war on Iran, triggering turmoil in world energy markets, the fallout continues to reverberate through many areas of the global economy.
While the war has strained many sectors of the economy, it has also been a boon for some industries.
Here is a look at some of the key economic winners and losers of the war:
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, alongside Iranian strikes on energy infrastructure in Gulf countries, has sent the price of oil soaring since the start of the war. That has boosted the bottom lines of some of the world’s biggest energy companies.
ExxonMobil, the largest oil company in the US, reported $14.5bn profit in the second quarter of this year, its best quarterly earnings in four years.
Chevron, the second-largest US producer, posted a $12bn profit for the same period, the highest in six years.
France’s TotalEnergies raked in a profit of $6bn in the April-June period, up from $3.6bn last year.
British energy giants Shell and BP both more than doubled their earnings year-on-year, with quarterly profits of $9.8bn and $5.73bn, respectively.
“European energy companies did even better than the US peers as they trade oil, and the latter also helped boosting their revenues,” Ipek Ozkardeskaya, a senior analyst at Swissquote Bank, told Al Jazeera.
“Supply shortages sure remain a risk for business, but energy is essential, and the companies are capable of raising prices to cover the revenue loss and make profit out of it.”
Despite the turmoil in the Middle East, some of the region’s top producers have also made bumper profits. Saudi Aramco netted $33.4bn profit in the most recent quarter, a one-third increase from 2025.
Some regional producers have been harder hit by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz than others, however.
In August, the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (best known as ADNOC) reported a 52 percent drop in second-quarter profit to $665m from $1.39bn in the same period a year earlier, saying sales had been hit by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. However, it still beat its expected range of $400m to $600m.
In late July, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth provided Congress with an estimate putting the cost of the war up to that point at $37.5bn.
Hegseth did not provide a breakdown, but various observers have suggested that the true cost is almost certainly far higher.
Linda Bilmes, a senior lecturer in public policy at Harvard Kennedy School, said Hegseth’s estimate appeared to be based on the upfront cost of munitions spent by US forces, neglecting medium- and long-term costs ranging from repairs to damaged military installations to disability payments for wounded soldiers, which could last for decades.
“There are significant costs in each category, but the Pentagon is only speaking about the short-term costs, mostly munitions valued at historical inventory,” Bilmes told Al Jazeera.
“My analysis shows that the total budgetary costs will likely reach $1 trillion.”
Recent US news reports have suggested that the US may be running low on essential weapons in the Middle East, particularly Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors. The Trump administration denies this .
In the most recent major weapons contract linked to the war, the Pentagon announced on August 17 that it had sealed a $22.9bn agreement with RTX Corporation to ramp up production of Tomahawk cruise missiles used for strikes.
The US military has also partnered with arms manufacturers on contracts worth tens of billions of dollars since the start of the war, including a $59bn deal with Lockheed Martin to triple production of Patriot interceptor missiles, which US and Gulf forces have heavily depleted against Iranian missile and drone attacks.
This is one area in which Iran has shown it can excel in asymmetric warfare .
A new single Patriot defence system costs more than $1bn, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
While each Patriot interceptor missile fired costs approximately $4m to produce, the Iranian Shahed drones they are being used to intercept are mass-produced and cost just $20,000 to $50,000 each.
“Demand has increased for air and missile defence, interceptor missiles, counter-drone technologies, surveillance and intelligence systems, satellites, propulsion, warheads, and munitions replenishment,” Rami Sarafa, CEO and founder of Cordoba Advisory Partners, told Al Jazeera.
“The conflict has highlighted the importance of affordable drone interceptors, layered missile defence, persistent ISR and the ability to manufacture large quantities of expendable munitions quickly. This is a lesson that the US and Israel are learning the hard way.”
Despite increased demand for armaments, some of the biggest defence firms have performed poorly on the stock market over the course of the war.
Lockheed Martin is up about 14 percent, only slightly more than the US stock market as a whole.
Higher fuel and fertiliser costs have pushed up food prices, putting the world’s poor at greater risk of hunger .
“The Gulf is important not only for oil and gas, but also for fertiliser and its feedstocks,” Gerben Hieminga, an expert in energy markets at ING Research, told Al Jazeera.
“If farmers respond to high prices by applying less fertiliser, the economic impact can emerge months later through lower yields and higher food prices, with vulnerable importing countries in Africa and Asia facing the greatest risks,” Hieminga said.
In July, the Food and Agriculture Organization’s food price index rose 0.6 percent compared with the previous month to hit its highest level since January 2023, a rise the UN agency attributed to the combined effects of drought and higher fuel prices due to conflict in the Middle East and Ukraine.
The World Food Programme has...
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