No emergency waits for us to be ready. The energy security of the future will depend on two assets built long before it arrives: preparedness and trust.

More than five centuries ago, Portugal already understood the strategic value of Hormuz. In 1515, Afonso de Albuquerque consolidated the Portuguese presence on the island, which would last until 1622. The objective was not to control energy resources, but to occupy a pivotal position on the trade routes linking the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, Persia, Mesopotamia and India.

Hormuz mattered not because of what the island produced, but because of its ability to shape the flows that passed through it. Empires changed. Geography did not.

In 2025, around 15 million barrels per day of crude oil passed through the strait, alongside petroleum products and more than one-fifth of global liquefied natural gas trade. According to the International Energy Agency, physical alternatives remain limited: only Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have operational pipelines capable of diverting a significant share of these flows, with an estimated available capacity of between 3.5 and 5.5 million barrels per day.

The crisis therefore exposed more than a vulnerable maritime passage. It revealed a multiplier of systemic risk.

An energy shock never remains confined to energy. It moves from oil and gas prices to transport, maritime insurance, fertilisers, industrial production and logistics. From there, it reaches food prices, household incomes, public finances, investment and growth. The World Bank estimates that a 10% rise in oil prices caused by a geopolitical shock can increase natural gas prices by around 7% and fertiliser prices by more than 5% (World Bank, 2026). As a rule of thumb, the International Monetary Fund suggests that a persistent 10% increase in oil prices could add about 0.4 percentage points to global inflation and reduce global output by between 0.1% and 0.2%.

Those effects are not distributed evenly. Import-dependent economies, emerging countries, and vulnerable households face the harshest consequences. For an importing economy, higher energy prices represent a sudden transfer of income abroad. For a lower-income household, they force increasingly difficult choices between mobility, food, housing, heating or cooling, and other essential needs.

These pressures also reinforce one another. A maritime disruption becomes a price shock; the energy shock reaches industry, fertilisers and food; inflation tightens financial conditions; and weaker investment delays the infrastructure required for the transition. What begins as a physical constraint can therefore become a much wider economic and social crisis.

Energy security is about flows, not only resources

Energy security was traditionally associated with the availability of resources: who owns them, who controls them, and at what price they are supplied. That remains fundamental, but it is no longer sufficient. A country may have large reserves and still be unable to bring them to market if routes are blocked, ports are constrained, infrastructure is damaged, or carriers and insurers are unwilling to assume the risk.

Hormuz demonstrates that the geography of infrastructure can matter as much as the geology of resources. Diversifying suppliers without diversifying routes, technologies and infrastructure can create a false sense of security.

The response of producers also showed that geography need not be destiny. The United Arab Emirates used the pipeline connecting Habshan to Fujairah, on the Gulf of Oman, allowing exports to bypass the strait. Saudi Arabia increased flows towards Red Sea ports. Oman benefited from infrastructure facing directly onto the Arabian Sea. These alternatives cannot replace Hormuz at scale, but they demonstrate a strategic truth: infrastructure built before a crisis determines how much freedom of action remains when disruption comes.

Redundancy may appear costly during periods of stability. In a crisis, it becomes a form of sovereignty.

Hormuz also points to two wider changes in energy security. The first is the growing centrality of electricity. Electrification across transport, buildings and industry, together with digitalisation and new sources of demand, is making electricity the organising principle of a growing share of the energy system.

The second is a shift in critical constraints away from production and towards infrastructure. Grids, storage, terminals, interconnections, logistics, flexibility and digital systems are becoming increasingly decisive. Traditional concerns remain, but vulnerabilities are more numerous, more interdependent and harder to manage in isolation.

Reserves buy time; trust makes action possible

The crisis also confirmed the value of instruments built over decades. In March 2026, IEA member countries agreed to make 400 million barrels from emergency reserves available to the market – the largest collective action in the organisation’s history. Strategic reserves help stabilise expectations and temporarily safeguard supply. Above all, they give governments and markets time to assess, coordinate and respond.

But reserves cannot replace damaged infrastructure or remove logistical bottlenecks. Nor should emergency policy rely indefinitely on broad tax cuts, administered prices or universal subsidies.  Support should protect essential services, vulnerable households and viable businesses while, wherever possible, preserving the price signals that encourage efficiency and adaptation. Exceptional measures should be targeted, transparent and temporary.

No reserve is unlimited. Prolonged stock releases also reduce the capacity to respond to a second disruption, which is why reserves should be understood as a bridge to action rather than a substitute for structural resilience.

Markets remain essential for redirecting flows, mobilising supply and adjusting demand. Yet markets under pressure do not function through price alone. They depend on credible information, effective monitoring and trust in institutions. Without trust, operators withhold information, countries hesitate to coordinate reserves and solidarity mechanisms, and citizens become more vulnerable to stockpiling and disinformation.

Trust cannot be decreed when an emergency begins. It must be built beforehand through consistent decisions, clear responsibilities, lasting relationships between institutions and companies, and honest public communication.

Preparedness without trust produces plans that no one follows. Trust without preparedness produces reassurance without the capacity to respond.

The energy transition is also a security strategy

The answer to Hormuz cannot simply be to find new sources of the same fuels. Energy efficiency, renewables and electrification reduce structural exposure to imports and international price volatility. Energy that is not consumed does not need to be imported, transported or subsidised. Electricity generated from domestic renewable resources is therefore an environmental, economic and strategic asset.

The transition does not eliminate risk; it changes its nature. A more electrified system depends more heavily on grids, storage, interconnections and digital security. Clean technologies depend on critical minerals, equipment and supply chains that are often concentrated in a small number of countries.

Different countries will need different combinations of renewables, nuclear power, natural gas, renewable gases, hydrogen, storage and other low-carbon technologies. Technological diversity is itself a form of resilience, if choices meet demanding tests of economic viability, maturity, sustainability and the effective reduction of external exposures.

Transitions are not linear. Under severe pressure, governments turn to the technologies that are immediately available, even when this entails temporary environmental setbacks. The challenge is to prevent exceptional security measures from hardening into permanent dependencies: short-term flexibility must coexist with long-term strategic clarity.

Security, competitiveness and decarbonisation can no longer be managed as separate agendas. The objective must be a diversified system in which technologies, infrastructure, markets and institutions reinforce one another.

The greatest risk to energy security over the next decade may not be a particular country, fuel or maritime strait. It may be the assumption that the next crisis will resemble the last. As some traditional vulnerabilities recede, others are emerging in electricity grids, digital systems, extreme weather events, critical minerals and industrial supply chains.

Preparedness must become a permanent function

A credible agenda for the next crisis requires six decisions.

Preparedness must operate before, during and after each crisis. Beforehand, dependencies must be mapped, responsibilities defined and emergency plans tested.

During a disruption, authorities need a continuously updated picture of the situation, coordinated scenarios, reserve and demand management, targeted protection and objective communication. Afterwards, reserves should be replenished, measures assessed and the lessons incorporated into future investment and procedures. A crisis should not end when the market stabilises, but when its lessons have genuinely been learned.

1. Map dependencies beyond the direct supplier – including routes, ports, terminals, insurers, digital systems, critical components and genuinely operational alternatives.
2. Assign economic value to redundancy – recognising that apparently surplus capacity may become essential during a disruption.
3. Test emergency plans regularly – bringing together authorities, regulators, operators, industry, municipalities and those responsible for critical infrastructure.
4. Integrate supply, demand and social protection – combining reserves and diversified supply with efficiency, demand management and targeted support.
5. Strengthen institutional capacity and trust – through credible data, transparency, clear responsibilities and consistent communication.
6. Deepen international cooperation – because no country can protect every route, infrastructure asset and supply chain on which it depends.

A strategy without institutions capable of implementing it creates only an appearance of preparedness. Implementation capacity is as important as policy ambition.

Portugal and Europe drew important lessons from the crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine about diversification, energy saving, coordination and consumer protection. Hormuz adds a further dimension: diversifying the source of energy is not enough. We must assess the entire physical, economic and technological journey that enables it to reach our economies and citizens.

At ADENE, our experience of helping to prepare, implement and monitor Portugal’s National Energy Saving Plan, and later of developing practical tools for future energy crises, reinforced a conviction that has stayed with me: resilience begins long before an emergency.

In 1622, Portugal lost Hormuz. It had understood the island’s strategic value for more than a century, but understanding the risk was not enough. Five centuries later, no country can control every chokepoint, electricity grid or supply chain on which it depends. What governments, agencies and companies can control is the preparedness and trust they build before the next crisis begins.

Author biography

Nelson Lage is President of ADENE – Portuguese Energy Agency, President of OLMC – Logistic Operator for Supplier Switching Processes, a Board Member of MEDENER – Mediterranean Association of National Agencies for Energy Management and ECEEE – European Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, and a former President of the European Energy Network (EnR). The views expressed are his own.