In the Philippines, a liter of diesel that cost 52 or 53 pesos before the war now sells for close to 100 pesos in some places. That is a jump of roughly 75 percent, and it landed on a country that gets 90 to 96 percent of its crude from the Gulf.
The trigger was the war that began February 28, 2026, when the United States and Israel struck Iranian military and nuclear sites and Iran struck back. Iran’s response effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries about 20 million barrels of oil a day. An April analysis of the fallout for Southeast Asia says about 84 percent of the crude and 83 percent of the liquefied natural gas moving through the strait is bound for Asia. Brent crude, near $72 a barrel before the fighting, passed $100 and peaked near $126 in early March.
The Philippines
Manila has little room to maneuver. The country has almost no domestic refining and relies on imported fuel products. Gasoline climbed from about $0.91 a liter in January to an estimated $1.80. The government declared a national energy emergency as fuel reserves shrank to an estimated 45-day buffer, and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. began emergency rationing.
For a jeepney driver or a family buying rice, the pump price is the first bill. It feeds into freight, fares and food.
Singapore and Malaysia
Singapore always has the region’s costliest fuel, and it got costlier: gasoline rose from $1.84 a liter in January to between $2.37 and $2.84 by late March. The bigger problem is power. The city-state leans on imported natural gas for electricity, and wholesale power prices rose about 20 percent in the third week of March. If global spot gas hits $25.39 per million British thermal units, the analysis projects gas-fired power there could roughly double from February levels to about $260.80 per megawatt-hour.
Malaysia exports LNG, which cushions the economy, but it imports refined fuel. The government held its subsidized RON95 petrol at 1.99 ringgit a liter. Premium RON97 jumped from 3.85 to 4.55 ringgit, and commercial diesel in Peninsular Malaysia from 3.92 to 4.72. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said the fuel subsidy bill went from 700 million ringgit to 3.2 billion in a single week.
Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia
Thailand gets about 74 percent of its crude from the Gulf. Its Oil Fuel Fund is paying out an estimated 700 million baht, about $21.4 million, every day to hold price ceilings, and the state is preparing large bank loans to keep the fund afloat. Gasoline there rose from $0.80 to $1.17 a liter by late March.
Vietnam holds less than 20 days of oil cover. Gasoline went from $0.71 to between $0.96 and $1.03 a liter. Hanoi drew on its price stabilization fund and weighed temporary cuts to fuel import tariffs to protect exporters.
Indonesia consumes roughly 1.6 million barrels a day and produces only 600,000 to 700,000. It promised to absorb the shock in the state budget rather than pass it on, which kept gasoline near $0.85 to $0.93 a liter. The analysis warns that in similar past episodes, subsidies have run above 300 trillion rupiah, about $20 billion, and could crowd out spending on schools, roads and health care.
The International Energy Agency coordinated a release of 400 million barrels from strategic reserves, adding roughly 2 million barrels a day of supply. The analysis calls that a temporary buffer.
