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Speaking ahead of an informal meeting of EU energy ministers in Dublin, Jørgensen said Europe had “surpassed €100 billion” in additional spending.
“We have now surpassed €100 billion that we’ve paid extra for our energy this year without receiving one extra molecule of gas or oil,” he said in the European Commission’s recording of his remarks.
The figure puts a direct cost on the price shock which has followed disruption to oil and liquefied natural gas supplies associated with the conflict involving Iran.
The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted one of the world’s most important energy corridors. Under normal conditions, the waterway handles roughly one fifth of globally traded oil and significant LNG volumes.
Europe remains heavily exposed because most of the oil it consumes and about 80 per cent of its gas requirements come from outside the EU.
The consequences were already visible in trade figures published before the latest ministerial meeting.
Last week, EU Today reported that the EU’s oil import bill had risen 55.8 per cent in the second quarter compared with a year earlier, even though the physical volume of crude imported increased by only 1.2 per cent.
Europe was therefore paying substantially more without materially increasing the amount of energy it purchased.
The pressure has intensified as winter approaches.
EU gas storage is around 70 per cent full, roughly 12 percentage points below the level recorded at the same stage last year. Jørgensen has warned governments to continue filling storage or consider reducing demand if required.
Possible measures include limiting temperatures in public buildings, restricting outdoor heating and switching off unnecessary public lighting, according to recommendations circulated to governments ahead of the Dublin meeting.
The informal meeting of EU energy ministers focused on energy affordability, security of supply and Europe’s continuing exposure to international fossil-fuel markets.
Irish Energy Minister Darragh O’Brien described the situation as the second major fossil-fuel shock Europe had faced in four years and argued that domestic clean-energy production was essential if the EU wanted to reduce its vulnerability to future crises.
Europe is in a stronger physical position than during the 2022 energy crisis.
It has expanded LNG import infrastructure, increased renewable electricity generation and reduced gas demand. It has also sharply reduced its dependence on Russian pipeline gas.
But that restructuring has created different dependencies.
European buyers now compete more directly for LNG on global markets, meaning events in the Gulf, Asia or the United States can rapidly affect the price paid by European consumers.
EU Today reported earlier this month that reduced LNG availability and disruption around Hormuz had left European gas storage at historically weak seasonal levels.
Diesel presents another problem.
Europe became more dependent on imported refined products after reducing purchases from Russia, with the United States now supplying approximately half of EU diesel imports.
Washington has considered restrictions on diesel exports as domestic US prices rise. European officials have urged the Trump administration not to introduce such measures, warning that they would increase pressure on international markets.
Emergency reserves provide some protection.
EU countries are required to maintain strategic oil stocks, while the International Energy Agency coordinated a release of 400 million barrels from member-country reserves earlier this year.
France and Germany hold a particularly large share of Europe’s strategic diesel inventories. Further releases remain possible if international markets deteriorate, although no new coordinated decision has yet been taken.
The current crisis is also feeding into the EU’s longer-term energy debate.
Spain, Portugal and Luxembourg are now pressing for an EU renewable-energy target for 2040, arguing that increasing domestic electricity generation would reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels.
The security argument extends beyond climate policy. An EU Today Research Desk paper published in June examined how concentrated fossil-fuel supply routes and maritime chokepoints can transmit geopolitical shocks into European prices, infrastructure and industry.
The current disruption provides a practical example.
Europe has not bought substantially more fuel, but it is paying tens of billions of euros more because the international price of the energy it imports has risen.
The immediate concern is whether supplies and gas inventories will be sufficient through the coming winter without another sharp increase in prices.
The longer-term question is how much of Europe’s energy demand can be moved away from imported fossil fuels before another geopolitical crisis produces the same result.
For EU governments, Jørgensen’s €100 billion figure provides a measure of the cost of that dependency.
China called the latest US threats of secondary sanctions on airline service-providing companies across the world an illegal unilateral measure without any basis in international law. The US said the sanctions would be applied if these companies do not stop providing services to Iranian airlines.
China said they “firmly oppose illicit unilateral sanctions that have no basis in international law and lack UN Security Council mandate,” Guo Jiakun, official spokesperson of its Ministry of Foreign Affairs said during a regular press conference on Wednesday, September 23.
China’s reaction came on the same day the latest US sanctions against Iran went into effect.
The US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has asked companies across the world who are involved in providing services such as refuelling, ticketing, and other kinds of ground support to stop serving Iranian airlines starting at midnight on September 23. If they fail to comply they will be “locked out of the dollar system,” Bessent threatened.
The latest sanctions against its airlines is part of the recently announced US attempt to completely isolate Iran from the global economy in order to pressure its government to re-open the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran has shut down the Strait of Hormuz following the resumption of US airstrikes as well as Washington’s attempts to bypass Iranian control over the waterway in the Persian Gulf since July. Iran has claimed that those American moves were in violation of the peace deal signed under international mediation in June.
The adoption of new sets of sanctions is widely seen as an indication of Washington’s failure to achieve its objectives in Iran militarily, even after seven months of war, which began on February 28.
Iran has reiterated that no amount of economic coercion will open the Strait of Hormuz. They listed the withdrawal of the US naval blockade, the unfreezing of its international assets, and an end of the war on all fronts in the region as preconditions for opening the Strait.
While some of the countries in the region cancelled Iranian flights to their airports in fear of US sanctions, Iran claimed most of its international flights remained scheduled and operational. Some countries also decided to close their airspace for Iranian airlines.
Iraq has diverted most of the Iranian flights from its Baghdad airport to Najaf.
If the flights remain suspended for a significant number of countries for a longer duration it would amount to an air blockade on Iran. This will have an effect on thousands of people employed in the aviation sector in the country which is already heavily facing tremendous economic troubles due to existing sanctions
A prolonged suspension of flights could also impact hundreds of thousands of Iranians who have to travel out of the country for medical or other reasons.
Iran has maintained that unilateral US sanctions are illegal and an “act of terrorism” against Iranian people. It has urged the nations across the world to not succumb to the unilateral actions of the US.
Chief of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Mohsen Rezaei, in an interview on Wednesday, warned neighboring countries against submitting to US pressure to shut down Iranian flights, claiming such acts will force Iran to retaliate.
Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Mohsen Rezaei refuted United States President Donald Trump’s latest claims about his country seeking fresh talks. He reiterated that there will be no new talks with the US until it implements the conditions already agreed upon.
“Dont get distracted by the US president’s mix signals-from ‘no negotiations’ to ‘we are ready to talk.’ The stakes around oil and the straits have changed. Damage control won’t stop what’s coming,” Rezaei said in a post on X on Tuesday, September 15.
Rezaei was responding to Trump’s latest claims made on his social media post about Iran seeking a deal “quickly and badly.” Trump called Iran a “failing nation” and said he will decide “whether or not the US will choose to engage.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, during his visit to the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi earlier this week, also said there is no need for fresh talks with the US until the conditions in the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), signed between the two countries in June, are implemented.
On Monday, Iran claimed it had finalized an agreement with Oman regarding the management of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and said it’s details would be announced soon.
“The understanding between Iran and Oman, as two littoral states, has been finalized. In consultation with Oman, we will decide on the next step, including how to announce or register the understanding,” official spokesperson of Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Esmail Baghaei said in a press conference on Monday, September 14.
He also claimed that a scheduled discussion over the issue with the Persian Gulf countries on Monday was canceled at the last minute after Saudi Arabia’s intervention. He called the Saudi move “ill-advised” and a lost opportunity.
It is speculated that the Saudi intervention is linked to recent attacks carried out by Yemen’s Ansar Allah forces inside its territories, hitting a crucial oil pipeline and King Khalid Air Base, along with other infrastructure.
Ansar Allah claimed its attacks inside Saudi Arabia were in retaliation to hundreds of Saudi airstrikes and over a decade-long blockade of the country.
Ansar Allah has also announced it will target Saudi ships carrying crude through the Bab-al Mandeb in the Red Sea.
In the past, Saudi Arabia had accused Iran of supporting Ansar Allah militarily. Iran has denied such claims, calling Ansar Allah an ally with its own independent agenda.
Earlier, both Iran and Oman had claimed that the regional meeting on Monday was not postponed for a later date, with Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi saying the delay was in the “interest of consensus.”
The talks for an agreement over the joint management of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz with Oman began in June, after Iran proposed it.
On August 25, Iran and Oman announced an initial agreement on the establishment of a temporary joint maritime corridor and a joint-mine clearance project.
The agreement, once finalized, is expected to “restore safe navigation” through the Strait while preserving the sovereignty and sovereign rights of coastal states, Press TV reported.
On the evening of September 14, a super tanker hit a mine after trying to cross the Strait of Hormuz through what Iran calls the “illegal route” near Omani waters, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said in a statement.
Later it was reported that several of the crew members of the said ship were missing.
The IRGC reiterated its warnings to all the ships in the Persian Gulf to refrain from using the US-backed Omani route, repeating the claims about the Strait of Hormuz being shut and under its full control.
The IRGC has repeatedly questioned US President Donald Trump’s claims of the restoration of free navigation through the Strait, calling them lies.
The Strait, through which nearly 20% of the global energy trade flowed before the US-Israeli war on Iran began in February has seen a massive fall in traffic, causing disruptions in energy supplies after the Iranians restricted traffic in retaliation.
Oil prices have crossed USD 100 per barrel several times since then. They again crossed the mark earlier this week due to the renewed escalation and fear of a blockade of oil trade through the Bab-al-Mandeb, after Ansar Allah’s warnings of targeting Saudi ships.
Nearly 12% of global trade in energy happens through the Bab-al-Mandeb.
On Monday, Iran reiterated that the US is solely responsible for the global impacts caused by the blockade of oil trade in the region.
The US war and naval blockade against Iran are the direct reasons for the closure of the Strait, Ali Bahreini, Iran’s permanent representative at Geneva, said during a UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) meeting asking the international community to acknowledge the fact that such unilateral actions are harmful for the global economy.
Iran assured that it will lift the blockade on the Strait of Hormuz the moment the US announces the end of its war and lifts the naval blockade and economic sanctions on Iran.
The Ansar Allah-led Yemeni Armed Forces seized the strategic Red Sea port city of Mokha on Yemen’s western coast on Thursday, September 10, pushing back Saudi-backed forces.
The development came one week after clashes over territorial dominance between the two sides escalated on September 3 and continued on the subsequent days.
Ansar Allah’s control of Mokha seaport represents a critical military and economic development, because of its close proximity to Bab al-Mandeb strait and due to serving as a key coastal staging ground along the Red Sea coast.
Because the Bab el-Mandeb Strait handles roughly 12% of global trade and vital energy supplies, the development would reshape regional and global geopolitics, particularly with maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz already restrained by the US-Iran war.
Head of Yemen’s national delegation Mohammad Abdulsalam affirmed in a post he wrote on X that the freedom of navigation and international trade movement in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab “is safe and orderly”, reassuring that “there is no cause for any international concern regarding it, for it faces no danger from Yemen’s side.”
Meanwhile, Yemen’s Humanitarian Operations Coordination Center (HOCC) announced on Thursday that navigation in the Red Sea is safe for all global shipping companies, except for Saudi ships, which are still subjected to the previous ban.
The head of Ansar Allah’s National Committee for Prisoners’ Affairs Abdul Qader Murtadha confirmed on Thursday that the movement succeeded in liberating all its prisoners from the detention facilities of the Saudi-backed forces on Yemen’s western coast.
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