Data & Visualisations
Charts, maps, and interactive data on the Gulf economy
Original visualisations accompanying policy research and commentary. Click any chart to open the interactive version.
Iran War
March WTI was up 41% compared to February. It’s true that this has not been the largest month-on-month increase in history, as the bar chart shows. The 1973 OPEC embargo raised the price by 135% and WTI recovered in 2020 from a catastrophic drop during Covid by 73%.
Neither episode is comparable though: in an era of price controls, the January 1974 jump came two and a half months after the embargo and concentrated the bottled-up upward pressure in one massive correction; the 2020 Covid rebound is another anomaly that came on the back of futures turning negative.
The line chart is a more accurate picture of the steep increase we are currently witnessing, compared to other crises in the last 40 years. That is what the IEA executive director, Fatih Birol, meant when he described the current crisis as “two oil crises and one gas crisis put all together.” And as things stand, we are in for much more.
Hormuz exposure and stock market performance
Scatter plot: the higher a country’s share of Hormuz-transiting hydrocarbons, the more its leading stock market has fallen. Notable outliers include European markets, South Korea, Taiwan, and China.
Hydrocarbon revenue per capita (2024)
Oil and gas revenue per capita by country in 2024. Qatar leads by a significant margin. Dramatic shifts expected in 2026 following the war. Update of a chart from my article for Gulf International Forum.
Global consequences of the war on Iran
Radial cascade diagram mapping the economic effects from Hormuz closure and airspace shutdowns through microeconomic supply shocks to macroeconomic consequences — inflation, interest rates, growth, employment, sovereign debt.
GCC economic fallout from the war on Iran
Flow diagram of the cascade from physical effects (infrastructure strikes, Hormuz closure) through affected industries to the fate of diversification strategies and long-term growth prospects.
Gulf Economy
GCC nightlight intensity from 1992 to 2023 (2024)
Satellite data on nightlight intensity as a proxy for economic activity. Average nighttime brightness in Saudi Arabia and the UAE has increased more than fourfold. Significant regional variation in development patterns visible.
Gulf climate indicators (2024)
Temperatures in Dubai rising three times as fast as in New York — a full degree per decade. Increasingly frequent and violent extreme weather events. High particulate matter pollution persists. Illustrative data from a 2022 article.
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