The war in Iran is causing an unprecedented disruption to global oil supplies, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Thursday.
In its monthly oil market report, the agency described the situation as "creating the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market."
The Gulf states have cut oil production by at least 10 million barrels per day, mainly because transport through a key shipping route, the Strait of Hormuz, has almost come to a standstill.
The IEA suspects that supply shortages will continue to increase unless traffic flows resume quickly.
For March, the IEA expects global oil supplies to be 8 million barrels per day lower. The organization estimates daily crude oil demand at just over 100 million barrels.
The IEA cites the collapse of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz as the main reason for the bottlenecks.
Before the war, around 20 million barrels of oil were transported through the strait daily. Now it is only a trickle. The possibilities for bypassing the waterway are limited.
Storage facilities are filling up, forcing the Gulf states to reduce production. Some production cuts are partially offset by increases elsewhere, including in Kazakhstan and Russia.
The IEA also revised down its estimate of global oil demand for March and April to about 1 million barrels per day, citing massive flight cancellations to the Middle East and disruptions to liquefied natural gas supplies.
