While Gulf energy producers face storage crises and production pressures, oil exporters outside the conflict zone are quietly counting the windfall benefits of oil above $90 a barrel. Norway, Canada, the United States, Kazakhstan, and other non-Gulf producers are seeing their revenues surge as the Iran conflict redrafts the global energy map and makes their output suddenly much more valuable.
The contrast between Gulf and non-Gulf producers has rarely been starker. While Kuwait cuts production due to storage constraints and Saudi Arabia and the UAE face the same fate within 20 days, North Sea operators, Canadian oil sands producers, and US shale drillers are selling their output at prices they have not seen since April 2024. For these producers, the Iran conflict’s disruption to Gulf supply is, in crude commercial terms, an enormous gift.
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund — the world’s largest, holding assets worth trillions of dollars and funded largely by oil revenues — is likely to see a significant boost from the current price environment. US shale producers, who operate with relatively high production costs that make them economically marginal below $60-$70 a barrel, are seeing their profit margins expand dramatically. Canadian oil sands operators face similar economics and similar windfalls.
The geopolitical implications are also significant. Countries that are both major oil exporters and close allies of the western nations involved in the conflict — Norway, Canada, and the US itself — suddenly have both the financial incentive and the political motivation to increase production as quickly as possible. However, the lead times for ramping up oil production are measured in months, not days — so the relief offered by non-Gulf producers will come slowly.
Qatar’s energy minister has warned that the worst-case scenario — all Gulf exporters halting production, oil at $150 — would create windfall revenues of historic proportions for non-Gulf producers. At $150 a barrel, US shale economics become extremely attractive, potentially triggering a major production surge that could eventually rebalance markets. But the rebalancing would take time, and the economic pain inflicted on oil-importing nations in the interim would be severe.