How is the world feeling the impact of rising oil prices?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 12 March 2026
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ever since the US and Israel began their war against Iran, economies around the world have been coping with the impacts of energy prices and food security.
South Korea has introduced an energy price cap, universities have closed in Bangladesh and India has been granted access to sanctioned Russian oil to ease pressures.
We hear where is being impacted the most and how quickly, and if this will see the world move away from its reliance on imports.
If you'd like to get in touch with the team, our email address is businessdaily@bbc.co.uk
Presenter: Rahul Tandon Producers: Matt Lines and Sarah Rogers Additional reporting: Sarah Rogers
Business Daily is the home of in-depth audio journalism devoted to the world of money and work. From small startup stories to big corporate takeovers, global economic shifts to trends in technology, we look at the key figures, ideas and events shaping business.
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(Picture: Motorists wait in line to purchase fuel at a petrol station in the Mohammadpur area of Dhaka, Bangladesh, amid concerns over global oil supply disruptions linked to escalating tensions in the Middle East. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:07.2 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. I'm Ruhl Tandon. |
| 0:12.8 | When a war breaks out, oil markets often react within minutes. |
| 0:15.8 | And in recent days, we've seen prices hit above $100 a barrel for the first time in four years. For a shock like this to happen, it sort of panics the industry. Oil, of course, is traded globally, and even a hint of disruption can send traders, businesses, and consumers scrambling. Everybody got bills and stuff. Now the gas is going way back up again. Man, we're all going to have to get electric cars or something. I don't know if they're coming down or going back up yet or what. |
| 0:40.0 | So today we're asking, why does conflict which can be thousands of miles away, |
| 0:44.4 | suddenly make life more expensive where you live and where is going to be hit hardest? |
| 0:53.9 | We are hearing lots of sounds like that across the Middle East. |
| 0:57.1 | The region, of course, is crucial to global energy supplies. |
| 1:00.2 | So any conflict there will affect economies across the world. |
| 1:03.9 | And I'm sure that many of you are already seeing fuel prices rise where you are. |
| 1:08.5 | It's an issue that the U.S. President Donald Trump is concerned about. |
| 1:12.4 | We're also focused on keeping energy and oil flowing to the world, terrorist regime to hold |
| 1:19.5 | the world hostage, an attempt to stop the globe's oil supply, and if Iran does anything to do that, |
| 1:25.2 | they'll get hit at a much, much harder level. I will take out those |
| 1:29.3 | targets. We wanted to take a step back here on Business Daily. There is so much going on and look |
| 1:35.2 | at which regions will be hardest hit economically and find out why. With me today, I have Simon |
| 1:41.3 | Johnson, Nobel Prize winning professor at the Massachusetts Institute |
| 1:45.2 | of Technology, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, and we have Ammanat Baca, |
| 1:51.1 | head of Middle East Energy and OPEC Plus Insights at Kepler. |
| 1:55.7 | I mean, can I start with you firstly? Because you're in Dubai. Just tell us what's been taking place around you today. |
| 2:03.2 | Yes, I'm based in Dubai and I'm currently still in Dubai. I would say over the past kind of a few |
| 2:08.4 | days, the intensity of the blasts we're hearing and the warnings that we get on our phone |
... |
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