Jet fuel shortage could disrupt summer travel in Asia and Europe

Jet fuel shortages threaten to disrupt summer travel as the loss of supplies from the Middle East ripples across Asia and Europe.

Exports from the Persian Gulf represented the largest single source of jet fuel supply to the global market before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, according to the International Energy Agency.

Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has cut off those jet fuel exports from the world. Europe is directly affected because the continent was the biggest importer of Middle Eastern fuel supplies. About 20% of the continent’s jet fuel came from the Gulf, according to the IEA.

The other major source of jet fuel exports to world markets are refineries in China, South Korea and India. But these refineries themselves rely heavily on crude oil from the Middle East. About 90% of the oil exported from the Gulf through the strait went to Asia before the war.

Refineries in Asia are struggling to meet domestic and international demand for jet fuel due to the loss of crude oil feedstocks, said Matt Smith, director of commodity research at Kpler.

“It’s a slow motion car crash,” Smith told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “We’re just kind of sleepwalking through it.”

Global jet fuel exports plunged 30% to 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd) in April, down from 1.9 million bpd in the same month last year, according to data from Kpler. Jet fuel loaded on tankers last week plunged 50% to 18.6 million barrels down from 37.8 million barrels in the same week in 2025, the data showed.

“Jet is incredibly short,” Valero Energy Chief Operating Officer Gary Simmons told investors on the refiner’s April 30 earnings call. Valero is one of the biggest independent refiners in the U.S.

Warnings in Europe

The European Union will face a “systemic jet fuel shortage” if the Strait of Hormuz does not reopen, the trade group Airports Council International Europe warned the 27-nation economic union in an April 9 letter.

Surging jet fuel prices have already forced major airlines to cut flights. Lufthansa, one of the biggest carriers in Europe, slashed 20,000 short-haul flights through October due in part to fuel costs.

Jet fuel prices have doubled in Europe over the past year to $187 per barrel as of May 1, according to the International Air Transport Association.

There was “no evidence of actual shortages in Europe” as of April 21 but commercial jet fuel stocks are under pressure, European Commissioner for Transport Apostolos Tzitzikostas told reporters at a press conference at the time.

The airports association warned in its April 9 letter that fuel shortages would hit Europe if exports through the Strait of Hormuz do not resume in a “significant and stable way” within three weeks. Oil flows did not normalize in April and they are unlikely to do so quickly even if the conflict ends.

“It’s going to take weeks and probably into months,” Chevron CEO Mike Wirth told CNBC Monday at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles.

The strait needs to be…