Imported Risk: How Operation Epic Fury Exposed South Asia’s Energy Vulnerability

Dhaka’s fuel imports don’t move through a market insulated from geopolitics — they move through the Strait of Hormuz, the same waterway that carries a quarter of the world’s oil and nearly a fifth of its LNG. When Operation Epic Fury triggered Iran’s closure of the strait in March, that exposure stopped being theoretical. Five of Petrobangla’s six LNG contracts hit force majeure within weeks, and Bangladesh’s working reserves—sufficient for roughly two weeks of diesel demand—were never built for this kind of disruption. BIPSS Research Assistant Nabib Bin Zahid traced in this commentary how that exposure compares across the region: China is 72% import-dependent, India is 88%, and Bangladesh is even more exposed on a fuel-import basis, with subsidy costs projected to climb toward 3% of GDP. I also follow a transmission channel most energy coverage misses: roughly 30% of global fertilizer trade runs through the same strait, so the same closure that spiked fuel prices also set off a “sulfur cascade” into phosphate production, with real consequences for the 2027 harvest.The harder question the piece raises is institutional, not just economic: Europe and the IEA countries hold coordinated strategic reserves precisely for chokepoint disruptions like this one. South Asia holds none. Read the full piece for the data behind the exposure and what a region with no shared buffer is actually risking the next time this happens, because the evidence from this crisis suggests there will be a next time.