The companies making billions from the Iran war

As households across the globe count the costs of the US-Israel war in Iran, some companies have been counting bumper profits instead. The uncertainty sparked by the conflict, and Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, is driving up the cost of living and hitting the budgets of firms, families and governments. But while some have been pushed to the brink, others, whose core businesses are more profitable in a war or who benefit from volatile energy prices, have seen record earnings.

Here are some of the sectors and companies making billions while the Middle East conflict continues. The biggest economic impact of the war so far has been a surge in energy prices. Around a fifth of the world’s oil and gas is transported through the Strait of Hormuz, but those shipments effectively ground to a halt at the end of February.

The result has been a rollercoaster of price movements on energy markets, with some of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies benefiting. The main beneficiaries have been European oil giants, who have trading arms so have been able to gain from sharp price movements boosting profits. BP’s profits more than doubled to $3.2bn (£2.4bn) for the first three months of the year, after what it called an “exceptional” performance in its trading division.

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Shell also beat analysts’ expectations when it reported a rise in first-quarter profits to $6.92bn. Another international giant, TotalEnergies, saw its profits jump by almost a third, to $5.4bn in the first quarter of 2026, driven by volatility in oil and energy markets. US giants ExxonMobil and Chevron saw their earnings fall compared with the same period last year, due to supply disruption from the Middle East, but both beat analysts’ forecasts and expect their profits to grow further as the year goes on, with the price of oil still significantly higher than when the war broke out. Some of the biggest banks have also seen their profits boosted during the war in Iran.

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