Fuel Shortage Crisis Erupts at Dozens of Gas Stations in France
Dozens of gas stations in France have reported shortages of certain fuel types, a situation directly related to the attack on Saudi Arabia's east-west crude oil pipeline and the ongoing pressure on global crude oil and diesel supplies.
On September 10, Saudi Arabia's "east-west crude oil pipeline," designed to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, was attacked, damaging three pumping stations and disrupting the supply of approximately 4 to 5 million barrels of crude oil per day from the global market, accounting for about 4% to 5% of global crude oil supply; the pipeline's total designed capacity is about 7 million barrels per day. Saudi Aramco has stated that it plans to restore about half of its transport capacity within a few days by bypassing the damaged section, but full repairs are expected to take 5 to 6 weeks.
Following the news, Brent crude futures surged to around $108 per barrel, with spot Brent crude prices even exceeding $130, described by commodity strategists as a signal of "serious tension in the physical market." As a result, the diesel market supply has become particularly tight, with domestic diesel prices in the U.S. exceeding $200 per barrel, setting a historical high, even though the U.S. is a major exporter of distillate fuels; gasoline prices also rose against seasonal trends during the traditional off-peak period.
In response to the new round of diesel price pressures, several European governments have urgently implemented measures: French President Macron has ordered a "full mobilization" to address fuel price issues, linking energy security directly to Middle Eastern diplomatic issues, emphasizing the need to promote the restoration of freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz; Italian Prime Minister Meloni has canceled the stamp duty on small and medium-sized vehicles; Spain has doubled the diesel tax reduction to 20 euro cents per liter since September 1 (previously, Spain's oil prices had already risen by 15.7% in July); German Chancellor Friedrich Merz stated that Berlin will "quickly" introduce relief measures, with local gasoline and diesel prices reaching €2.45 per liter. France's inflation rate rose to 2.7% in August, driven mainly by energy prices; Italy's inflation also accelerated to 3.3% in August, similarly driven by rising energy prices.
A spokesperson for the European Commission previously stated that "there is currently no supply shortage in the EU," but acknowledged that as energy demand rises in the autumn and winter, market supply may tighten further. Before this crisis erupted, in April of this year, about 27.8% of the approximately 9,700 gas stations in France experienced fuel shortages, with gasoline shortages accounting for about 1.2% and diesel shortages about 0.8%; Patrick Pouyanné, CEO of French energy giant TotalEnergies, had warned at that time that if the Strait of Hormuz were to remain blocked for another 2 to 3 months, France could enter an "energy shortage era," as the company had already lost about 15% of its Middle Eastern production and the previously buffered inventory had been nearly exhausted. Macron responded at that time by stating that "the situation remains under control" and emphasized that "panic itself is the cause of shortages."
From the market transmission mechanism perspective, the attack on Saudi Arabia's east-west pipeline, which was a key backup route designed to mitigate risks associated with the Strait of Hormuz, means that the redundancy in the crude oil supply system originally intended to hedge geopolitical risks is being directly breached. The impact of this "failure of the backup route itself" on market sentiment is often greater than mere price fluctuations, directly driving crude oil and diesel futures prices to jump; cost pressures are transmitted layer by layer from refining, wholesale to retail, ultimately manifesting as temporary supply shortages of certain fuel types at gas stations. In the short term, traders and energy producers holding long positions in crude oil and refined oil futures, betting on an expansion of geopolitical risk premiums, are the direct beneficiaries, while logistics companies, agricultural producers, and ordinary consumers relying on diesel transportation continue to face pressure; the tax reductions and price intervention measures rolled out by various governments are essentially using fiscal resources to partially offset the cost pressures transmitted to end consumers, but do not provide substantial relief to the actual global supply gap.
Source: Public Information
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This is not the first time France has experienced queues or even supply shortages at gas stations due to external oil source disruptions. In October 2022, labor strikes at TotalEnergies' refineries led to significant fuel shortages at many gas stations around Paris, prompting the government to order the requisition of some striking workers to resume production; earlier this April, France had already experienced a more severe supply peak due to the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, with nearly 30% of gas stations affected to varying degrees. Compared to the previous two crises, which were mainly caused by domestic labor disputes or single-point risks in the strait, this time the attack on Saudi Arabia's "east-west pipeline," originally designed to reduce reliance on the Strait of Hormuz, signifies that France and Europe's energy supply systems are facing an expanded risk exposure that cannot be simply resolved through a single backup route.
From a resource mobilization perspective, Saudi Aramco's choice to prioritize bypassing the damaged section and striving to restore about half of the pipeline's capacity within a few days reflects the typical emergency resource allocation logic of oil-producing countries after infrastructure attacks—first quickly restoring some capacity to minimize losses, then gradually advancing full repairs; meanwhile, the recent fiscal tools such as fuel tax reductions and vehicle purchase tax exemptions introduced by European governments essentially transfer the cost pressures that would have fully passed on to consumers partially to the national treasury. This "government subsidy to offset market gaps" funding model is similar to the large-scale introduction of energy price caps and subsidy mechanisms by Germany, France, and other countries during the 2022 European energy crisis, reflecting that when facing supply-side geopolitical shocks, the policy toolbox of major European economies has become relatively solidified and familiar.
The chain reaction triggered by the attack on the Saudi pipeline bears structural similarities to the 1973 oil crisis when Arab oil-producing countries imposed an oil embargo on the West, leading to soaring global oil prices and queues at gas stations in major consuming countries. However, the uniqueness of this crisis lies in the fact that the target of the attack is not merely production or export policy tools, but the physical infrastructure originally viewed as a "risk diversification plan" itself. This means that the "multi-path redundancy" design that the global energy supply system previously relied on is facing a real test of being targeted and rendered ineffective. In terms of the current stage of the global crude oil logistics network, the industry is being forced to reassess whether simply relying on increasing pipelines and detours is sufficient to cope with the risks of targeted strikes under geopolitical conflicts, potentially increasing investments in strategic reserve sizes and diversifying import sources for deeper resilience building.
This phenomenon essentially represents a "transfer of pricing power": when key infrastructure originally used to disperse risk becomes a direct target of geopolitical games, the actual pricing power in the global energy market shifts from the traditional supply-demand fundamental model towards geopolitical risk premiums. Any targeted strike on energy infrastructure can trigger a price surge far exceeding the actual production loss in a short time. The mechanism behind this is that the modern global energy logistics network heavily relies on the continuous smooth operation of a few key paths (such as the Strait of Hormuz, Suez Canal, and east-west pipeline), and this "node concentration" network structure inherently possesses vulnerabilities. Once a key node is attacked and backup paths are simultaneously exposed to similar risks, the resilience of the entire supply network to attacks will be rapidly weakened, which is the deep structural reason for the current oil price's "overreaction" to the proportion of physical production losses.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
Once a backup route is attacked, the risk exposure is no longer a backup.
The more concentrated the nodes in a network, the easier it is for a small proportion of damage to trigger a large proportion of panic.
In geopolitical conflicts, the infrastructure itself is the most valuable bargaining chip.