The escalating conflict between Iran, Israel, and the United States in West Asia has once again forced the world to confront a hard truth — energy security is inseparable from national and global security. What began as a prolonged cycle of retaliatory strikes, proxy warfare, and nuclear tensions crystallised into a direct military confrontation that sent shockwaves far beyond the region’s borders.
The implications for global energy markets were immediate and severe. West Asia accounts for roughly one-third of the world’s crude oil production and an even larger share of global oil trade flows. With military activity intensifying near critical maritime chokepoints, the world’s most strategically vital waterway came under direct threat.
The Strait of Hormuz — a narrow channel between Iran and Oman — is the passage through which approximately 20-21 million barrels of oil transit every single day, representing nearly 20 per cent of global oil consumption. Even partial disruptions to shipping lanes caused war-risk insurance premiums on oil tankers to spike dramatically, prompting major shipping companies to reroute or suspend Gulf operations and triggering panic buying across energy markets. The damage extended well beyond the Strait itself. In early March 2026, Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura refinery — one of the largest oil processing facilities in the world, operated by Saudi Aramco and capable of processing over 550,000 barrels per day — was shut down following a drone strike. Simultaneously, Qatar Energy’s Ras Laffan Industrial City — home to the Qatargas and North Field operations that make Qatar the world’s single largest LNG exporter — sustained drone attacks that forced a halt in LNG production and the declaration of force majeure. This alone removed an estimated 5.8 million tonnes of LNG supply in March 2026, representing approximately 14 per cent of the global monthly LNG forecast.
The ripple effects were immediate and severe. Crude oil prices surged past $120 per barrel within weeks of the conflict’s escalation, with analysts warning of scenarios above $200 per barrel if hostilities continued. European gas prices nearly doubled, while Asian LNG benchmark prices rose by approximately 39 per cent, reaching their highest levels since early 2023. Countries with large import bills saw their trade deficits widen overnight. Pakistan and Bangladesh — among the most LNG-dependent developing economies — faced emergency supply shortfalls. Fuel prices at the pump climbed sharply across Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, regions least able to absorb such shocks. Power utilities dependent on imported gas faced either costly emergency procurement or forced load shedding. The war had not reached their shores, but its economic consequences most certainly had.
This crisis, like those before it, has reinforced what energy analysts have advocated for years: the most resilient energy security strategy is one that diversifies away from imported fossil fuels toward domestically produced alternatives. Among these alternatives, biofuels stand out not just for their energy potential, but for their unique ability to be produced from waste resources that every country already generates.
Biomethane, produced through the anaerobic digestion of organic waste — agricultural residues, food waste, sewage sludge, organic municipal waste and animal manure — can directly substitute for natural gas in heating, electricity generation, industrial applications, and transport. Countries with large agricultural sectors, from India to Brazil to sub-Saharan Africa, generate vast quantities of organic matter that today goes unutilised or is openly burned. Converting this waste into pipeline-quality gas reduces both import dependency and greenhouse gas emissions simultaneously.
Bioethanol, derived from the fermentation of sugarcane, corn, cassava, or lignocellulosic crop residues, has proven its scalability at the national level. Brazil’s decades-long ethanol program has made it one of the most energy-independent large economies in the world, with over 40 per cent of its light-vehicle fleet running on flex-fuel. Countries in Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and East Africa have the feedstock base to replicate and adapt this model to their own contexts.
Biodiesel, produced from vegetable oils, animal fats, and used cooking oil, is a direct substitute for petroleum diesel in transport and power generation. It is particularly relevant for countries with large palm, soy, jatropha, or sunflower cultivation. Unlike crude oil, feedstocks for biodiesel can be produced domestically, processed domestically, and consumed domestically — keeping the economic value chain entirely within a country's borders.
Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), perhaps the most strategically significant biofuel of the coming decade, is produced from a range of waste feedstocks including agricultural residues, municipal solid waste, and used cooking oils. Aviation is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise and one of the most exposed to crude oil price volatility. Countries that develop domestic SAF production capacity insulate their aviation sectors — and by extension, their tourism, trade, and logistics industries — from the kind of fuel price shocks that the Iran-Israel-US conflict has generated.
The clearest argument for biofuels is not theoretical — it is the lived experience of countries that had already invested in domestic biofuel programs and found themselves meaningfully cushioned from the worst of the crisis.
Brazil stands as the most compelling example globally. Over decades of consistent policy under programmes like ProAlcool, RenovaBio, and the Fuel of the Future Law, Brazil built a biofuel economy of enormous scale. Ethanol blending in petrol has been raised to 30 per cent (E30), while biodiesel blending in diesel is set at 15 per cent (B15), both effective from August 2025. In addition, due to the widespread use of flex-fuel vehicles, ethanol’s share in total transport fuel consumption (including hydrous ethanol, E100) is estimated at approximately 45 per cent, making Brazil one of the highest ethanol-penetration fuel markets globally. When crude prices surged amid the West Asia conflict, Brazilian consumers at the pump were insulated from the full shock: the domestic ethanol supply, priced independently of global crude markets, provided a competitive alternative. Brazil’s flex-fuel vehicle fleet — which allows drivers to switch between petrol and ethanol based on price — gave consumers a direct, real-time hedge against import price spikes. The country’s energy security was not a product of luck; it was a product of policy made decades in advance.
Similarly, India, despite being a major fossil fuel importer, has rapidly advanced its Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) program and has already achieved 20 per cent ethanol blending. India has partially decoupled its petrol supply from global crude oil shocks. This has so far helped avoid increases in retail fuel prices, offering a real-time demonstration that even partial biofuel deployment can enhance economic resilience.
Moreover, India’s ethanol production capacity stands at approximately 18.2 billion litres, while the E20 programme requires about 10.2 billion litres annually, leaving a surplus of nearly 8 billion litres. A portion of this excess could be redirected towards clean cooking; for instance, allocating 4 billion litres could meet the cooking fuel needs of around 40 million households, assuming an average annual consumption of about 125 litres per household.
Indonesia offers a parallel story from Southeast Asia. As the world’s largest palm oil producer, Indonesia mandated a 40 per cent biodiesel blend (B40), substituting a significant volume of diesel that would otherwise have been imported. When the Ras Laffan shutdown tightened global diesel supply and LNG availability collapsed, Indonesia’s palm-based biodiesel program provided direct cushioning for its transport and power generation sectors.
Denmark offers an illustrative example. Presently, biomethane constitute close to 40 per cent of Danish gas demand, with the country on track to reach 100 per cent green gas in the grid before 2030. This high share of domestically produced biomethane has strengthened Denmark’s gas security and reduced its exposure to imported gas price volatility arising from geopolitical tensions.
These examples collectively make the case: countries that invested in biofuels before the crisis struck were better positioned during it. The protection was not absolute, but it was real, measurable, and proportional to the depth of the program.
The gap between biofuel potential and biofuel reality remains wide for most countries. Closing this gap requires deliberate, sustained policy action across several dimensions.
First, governments must establish clear blending mandates that create guaranteed domestic demand. Without a mandated market, private investors cannot justify the capital expenditure required to build refineries, collection networks, and supply chains. Mandates should be progressive — starting at achievable levels and rising over time — to signal long-term commitment while allowing industries to mature.
Second, national feedstock strategies must be developed. Governments need to conduct systematic assessments of their agricultural and municipal waste streams, identify the most viable conversion pathways, and design policies that channel these feedstocks into biofuel production rather than landfills or open burning. This requires coordination between various ministries, environment agencies, and energy regulators.
Third, financing mechanisms must be unlocked. Biofuel infrastructure is capital-intensive, and private sector participation requires de-risking instruments such as blended finance, loan guarantees, concessional lending, and access to sufficient working capital finance. Development finance institutions have a critical role in structuring the first-of-a-kind projects that demonstrate commercial viability and attract subsequent private investment.
Finally, research and technology transfer programs must be prioritised. Many developing countries have the feedstock but lack the technical capacity to efficiently convert it. International cooperation on technology licensing, capacity building, and knowledge transfer can dramatically shorten the learning curve.
The Iran-Israel-US conflict has written the same lesson in the same ink that the 1973 Arab oil embargo, the 1990 Gulf War, and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine all wrote before it: energy dependence on distant, politically unstable sources is a structural vulnerability that no country can afford to ignore.
Biofuels do not offer silver bullets. They are one component of a broader energy diversification strategy that must also include renewables, energy efficiency, and storage. But they offer something that solar panels and wind turbines currently cannot: a direct, drop-in substitute for liquid fuels in transport, aviation, and industry — sectors where alternatives remain limited and where import dependence bites hardest when crises strike.
Every tonne of organic waste converted into biomethane, every litre of used cooking oil refined into biodiesel, every hectare of energy crops cultivated on marginal land is a small act of strategic sovereignty. Taken together, at scale, these acts constitute a nation’s insurance policy against the next war, the next blockade, and the next price shock — whatever form they take and wherever they originate.
Rahul Jain is Biofuels Specialist at the Global Biofuels Alliance
Santanu Gupta is Director (Technical) at the Global Biofuels Alliance
Views expressed are the authors’ own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth