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.
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Here is a look at some of the key economic winners and losers of the war:
Winner: Oil companies
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.
Losers: US taxpayers
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.”
Winner: Defence firms
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.
Shares of Northrop Grumman are down about 25 percent since the start of the conflict, while Boeing has dropped about 8 percent.
Lockheed Martin is up about 14 percent, only slightly more than the US stock market as a whole.
Loser: The world’s hungry
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 estimated that an additional 7.1 million people in three vulnerable countries – Somalia, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka – are already struggling to get sufficient food due to the fallout of the war.
Last week, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that conflict had turned the world’s food supply into “collateral damage”. He called for an end to the disruption of trade through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf, which Iran has effectively closed, and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, where Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen are targeting Saudi-linked shipping.
Winner: Banks
Stock market volatility spurred by the war has driven a surge in trading at financial institutions, as investors look to profit from wild market swings or swap equities for less risky assets, such as bonds.
Each of the “Big Four” US banks reported double-digit increases in profit in the second quarter of the year, with JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo netting a combined $42.5bn.
Major banks in other countries have also reported impressive earnings.
UK lender HSBC’s net profit jumped 60 percent to $10.1bn in the last quarter, while France’s Societe Generale saw its earnings rise 23 percent to $2.04bn.
Loser: Airlines
The war has severely impacted the aviation industry, particularly in the Middle East, where Iranian missile and drone attacks forced the cancellation or diversion of tens of thousands of flights in the early months of the conflict.
While major Middle East region carriers have yet to report their earnings for the most recent quarter, the International Air Transport Association has estimated that the region’s airlines are collectively on track for a $4.3bn loss, following a $7.2bn profit in 2025.
While the Middle East has borne the brunt of the disruption, the reverberations of the conflict have been felt across the industry globally because of higher fuel prices.
On Friday, Air New Zealand became the latest airline to blame higher fuel costs for poor earnings, posting a loss of about $200m for the 12 months to June 30.
“Airlines have faced the combination of cancelled flights, longer routes, constrained airspace and expensive jet fuel,” said Hieminga at ING Research.
“That is particularly damaging for Gulf carriers and European or Asian airlines that rely heavily on the East-West corridor, while US carriers have generally been less directly exposed.”
Winners: Renewables and coal
Both clean and “dirty” energy have benefitted from the crisis in global oil and gas supplies.
Clean energy
Rising fossil fuel prices have accelerated efforts to transition to renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and hydro power.
At least 26 countries and regions, including China, Australia, Canada and France, have announced clean energy initiatives in response to the war, according to the Global Energy Crisis Policy Monitor.
The International Energy Agency estimates that electric vehicles will make up 29 percent of all vehicle sales in 2026, the highest share ever.
Jan Rosenow, a professor of energy and climate policy at the University of Oxford, said the conflict has strengthened the “structural case” for renewables at a time when demand is hitting record levels in many countries.
“I think increasingly, companies expect oil and gas prices to remain elevated for some time to come. This means the price pressure to switch off fossil fuels also remains strong,” Rosenow told Al Jazeera.
“Overall, this should strengthen the market for renewables.”
‘Dirty’ energy
However, another beneficiary is coal. In August, South Africa’s thermal coal producer Thungela Resources said it had doubled its half-year profits as the war has forced more countries to buy the fuel.
Production at Thungela’s Ensham mines in Queensland rose by 38 percent in the first half of the year, during the peak of the conflict.
The company reported 4.80 South African rand ($0.30) in headline earnings per share – or HEPS, a primary metric of profitability used in South Africa. That is up from 1.92 rand ($0.12) in June last year.
Although abundant and relatively cheap to produce, coal is considered one of the dirtiest fossil fuels. Mining it causes water pollution, while burning it releases large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, which contributes to global warming.
While coal prices have risen, the fuel remains much cheaper than oil – and is more readily available. This has appealed to Asian countries, which are more reliant on oil and gas shipped through the Strait of Hormuz than others. Since the war began, several Asian countries have announced plans to increase coal-fired electricity generation or have scaled back plans to reduce coal consumption.
Indonesia is the top coal exporter by a wide margin, followed by Australia and Russia.
In March, Jakarta reversed previous plans to curb coal production and reduce oversupply in a bid to benefit from the rising prices. Prices were set at $131.85 per tonne in July, compared with $102.20 in the previous year.
According to an analysis by energy data company Ember, coal output will rise globally by 1.8 percent by the end of 2026 compared with 2025 in a “worst-case” scenario.
Losers: Carmakers
The car industry has been among the most visibly impacted manufacturing-intensive sectors due to the rising cost of key materials such as aluminium, plastics and paint.
Toyota, the world’s biggest carmaker, said last week that its global sales fell almost 5 percent in July, the sixth straight month of decline.
The latest sales figures came after the Japanese carmaker warned earlier this year that it expected the conflict to cost it $4.3bn.
Germany’s Volkswagen, the second-biggest carmaker globally, saw its earnings drop by nearly one-third in the second quarter as the fallout from the war compounded growing competition from Chinese brands.
“The war’s bigger, less-visible fingerprint has been on the supply side: Middle East production and export disruptions at Toyota, Mazda and Hyundai, rerouted inventory landing stateside, and Iran-linked cost spikes in aluminium and speciality chip materials,” Erin Keating, executive analyst at Cox Automotive, told Al Jazeera.
“While higher gas prices could provide a modest boost to electric vehicles and hybrids, the overall effect on the market is more likely to be negative if consumers continue pulling back,” Keating added.
