Operation Epic Fury puts Singapore’s most fundamental vulnerabilities on notice — from energy security and aviation to trade routes and geopolitical positioning
The explosions that rocked Tehran on Saturday morning were heard, in a very real sense, all the way in Singapore. By mid-afternoon local time, Singapore Airlines had already cancelled six flights. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was coordinating the evacuation of Singaporeans stranded in Iran via complex overland corridors through Oman, Armenia, and the UAE. And somewhere in the markets, oil prices were climbing toward thresholds not seen since the worst moments of the Russia-Ukraine war.
For a city-state whose prosperity rests entirely on the uninterrupted flow of goods, energy, and people across the world’s sea lanes and air corridors, the eruption of full-scale US-Israeli military operations against Iran — “Operation Epic Fury,” as the Pentagon has named it — represents perhaps the most serious test of Singapore’s structural vulnerabilities since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Energy Chokepoint That Cannot Be Ignored
No piece of geography concentrates Singapore’s strategic anxieties more than the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow 33-kilometre waterway between Iran and Oman through which about 20 percent of global oil supplies are shipped Al Jazeera, amounting to approximately $500 billion in annual energy trade Al Jazeera. Singapore is not merely a passive downstream consumer of this energy. It is a primary transshipment and refining hub: the primary discharge area for tanker traffic originating in the Gulf is “Singapore/Malaysia” (64.7%), though most of this oil is transshipped to China, using Singapore and Malaysian ports as intermediate storage or blending points. The Signal Group
The Strait of Hormuz has never been completely closed, but that distinction may be academic today. Iran mined the Strait in the 1980s, prompting U.S. military action, and has periodically harassed and attacked ships transiting the narrow waterway. Congress.gov Iran’s parliament had already voted last year to support closure in the event of attack. With Operation Epic Fury now underway and Iranian forces retaliating against US bases across the Gulf — in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi — the operational risk to maritime traffic is no longer theoretical.
The financial consequences are stark. Lombard Odier estimates that a temporary spike in oil prices to $100 per barrel — or beyond — is plausible, and global LNG prices would also be affected if Iran moves to block the strait. The National Goldman Sachs was even more direct in a recent note, warning that “oil prices could even top $100 a barrel” if the strait were blocked. Gulf News BloombergNEF, in a pre-attack analysis, had already projected that if Iranian oil exports were completely removed and disruption persisted through the year, Brent could average $91 per barrel in the fourth quarter of 2026. BloombergNEF
For Singapore, higher energy prices cascade through every sector of the economy: manufacturing, petrochemical refining, logistics, and consumer inflation. Singapore’s GCC oil imports account for approximately one-third of its total oil import basket, and the island’s world-class refining sector at Jurong Island processes Gulf crude for re-export across Asia. A sustained supply disruption would compress refinery margins, raise input costs, and threaten Singapore’s position as Asia’s preeminent petroleum trading hub.
Singapore Airlines and the Aviation Corridor Under Fire
The immediate operational casualty visible to ordinary Singaporeans is aviation. Singapore Airlines has cancelled six SIA and Scoot flights on February 28 and March 1 amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, including four SIA flights between Singapore and Dubai, and two Scoot flights between Singapore and Jeddah. Mothership.SG The airline stated it would “continue to monitor the situation in the Middle East closely and will adjust our flight paths as needed.”
But the disruption is already deeper than initial cancellations suggest. FlightRadar24 shows airlines steering clear of airspace over Iran, Iraq, Syria and Israel, taking longer — and more expensive — routes around the conflict zone. The move mirrors similar decisions by British Airways, Air France and US carriers, which are bracing for fuel hikes and volatile conditions. Yahoo!
This matters structurally for Singapore Airlines in a way it does not for most other carriers. Since Russia closed its skies to Western airlines following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Middle East overflights became an indispensable artery linking Singapore to Europe. SIA’s Changi hub depends on these corridors for its competitive edge in long-haul connectivity. A sustained closure of Gulf and Iranian airspace would force SIA into circumnavigation routes — south around the Arabian Peninsula and north through Central Asia — adding hours to flights, burning significantly more fuel, and eroding the commercial viability of certain routes entirely.
Singaporeans Caught in the Conflict Zone
For the MFA, Saturday began as an operational crisis. As early as Wednesday, February 26, Singapore had advised its citizens in Iran to leave the country while flights remained available Malay Mail, a warning that proved tragically prescient. By Saturday afternoon, the MFA was coordinating the extraction of Singaporeans through improvised multi-country routes: a family of three was flown to Muscat, while another Singaporean joined a 24-person convoy to Turkmenistan before reaching Kuala Lumpur, and seven others exited via Armenia and the UAE. Yahoo!
Singapore has no diplomatic mission in Tehran, a longstanding structural gap in its consular capability that constrains the government’s ability to respond in precisely the kind of emergency that has now materialised. The MFA has been coordinating with Malaysia and Oman to facilitate exit routes, reflecting Singapore’s pragmatic diplomatic practice of leveraging bilateral relationships to compensate for the absence of on-the-ground representation.
The broader community of Singaporeans and Singapore permanent residents in the wider Middle East — in Dubai, Riyadh, Doha, Abu Dhabi — now faces an environment of acute uncertainty. Iranian forces have launched missiles at several locations linked to US military operations across the region, including Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE and Bahrain. Al Jazeera Many of these are cities where Singaporean expatriates live and work in significant numbers, and where Singapore Airlines operates regular services.
The Port of Singapore: Congestion Risk and Supply Chain Shock
Singapore’s port, consistently ranked among the world’s busiest, faces a structural disruption scenario that should command attention from the Port Authority and the PSA Corporation. Capacity concerns could spring up if too many vessels are forced to stop at already crowded transshipment ports — whether Shanghai, Singapore, or Colombo — ultimately resulting in more shipping delays. Sourcing Journal
The logic runs as follows: if the Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed or too dangerous to transit, tankers and container vessels that would normally route through the Gulf will be diverted around the Arabian Peninsula and through the Indian Ocean. That rerouting generates cascading bottlenecks as vessel capacity is suddenly consumed by longer voyage times, insurance war-risk zones expand, and cargo owners scramble to re-sequence their supply chains. Singapore, as the primary transshipment hub bridging East and West, would absorb a disproportionate share of this congestion pressure.
Simultaneously, major shipping lines would push for a “security surcharge” on trades touching the conflict zone Sourcing Journal, raising costs for Singapore-based importers and exporters. Freight rates on key lanes — Middle East to Asia, Europe to Asia — would spike. The knock-on effects for Singapore’s manufacturing sector, which relies on just-in-time supply chains for electronics, pharmaceuticals, and precision engineering, could be severe if disruption persists beyond weeks.
The Geopolitical Tightrope: Singapore’s Diplomatic Calculus
Beyond the immediate economic and logistical consequences lies a more profound diplomatic challenge that will occupy Singapore’s foreign policy establishment in the days and weeks ahead. Singapore has historically navigated relationships with the United States, Israel, the Arab states, and Iran with a calibrated pragmatism unusual among small states. It maintains close defence ties with the United States — Singapore is one of very few non-NATO countries with Forces Overseas Status in America — while simultaneously sustaining productive economic relationships with Gulf Arab states and avoiding unnecessary provocation of Iran.
That equilibrium is now under acute stress. Iran’s foreign minister has warned regional states not to allow the US or Israel to use their facilities or territory to conduct strikes against Iran Axios, and declared that “all American and Israeli assets and interests in the Middle East have become a legitimate target.” Al Jazeera For Singapore, whose flag flies over tankers and whose airline’s aircraft transit Gulf airspace, the declaration carries non-trivial operational significance, even if Singapore is not itself a combatant or a facilitator.
Singapore has consistently advocated for multilateralism, international law, and the peaceful resolution of disputes — precisely the principles that Operation Epic Fury has upended. The UN Charter framework that Singapore has championed since independence was explicitly invoked by Iran’s foreign minister in condemning the strikes as “a clear crime against international peace and security.” How Singapore navigates the diplomatic aftermath — whether to call publicly for a ceasefire, how to engage with the United States on the implications for the region, and how to maintain economic ties with Gulf states navigating Iranian missile strikes on their territory — will be among the most consequential foreign policy decisions the government faces in 2026.
Singapore’s particular interest in freedom of navigation, which it has defended diplomatically and occasionally militarily for decades, is directly implicated. Academic analysis of Singapore’s Gulf engagement notes the significance of the one-third share of GCC oil in Singapore’s total oil imports, and the vulnerability this creates when security challenges arise in the Gulf — citing specific incidents in which Singapore-flagged tankers were attacked or fired upon while transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Taylor & Francis Online
The Wider Economic Threat: Inflation, Growth, and Market Volatility
The Singapore economy enters this crisis from a position of moderate resilience but significant exposure. The government’s own parliamentary response to earlier rounds of Middle East escalation in 2024 acknowledged that “further escalations in these conflicts could lead to a spike in oil prices, with wider repercussions on global growth and inflation and in turn, the Singapore economy.” Ministry of Trade and Industry That conditional warning has now become an active reality.
Higher oil prices feed directly into Singapore’s domestic cost structure: electricity tariffs are indexed to fuel prices, transport costs rise, and the petrochemical sector faces margin compression. For a government that has spent the past three years managing post-pandemic inflation with considerable discipline, a sustained oil price shock would complicate monetary policy and potentially force the Monetary Authority of Singapore to reassess its exchange rate management stance.
Global equities will face turbulence. Lombard Odier has warned that the impact of conflict will be felt across asset classes, with global stocks likely to suffer bouts of intense volatility. The National Singapore’s stock exchange, with its heavy weighting in banks, real estate investment trusts, and commodity-linked counters, is not isolated from this dynamic.
There is, arguably, one sector where Singapore stands to benefit perversely from the crisis: its energy trading and bunker fuel industry. War-risk premiums, rerouting, and supply uncertainty tend to increase the value of Singapore’s role as a neutral entrepôt where cargoes can be stored, blended, retraded, and redirected. In the short term, commodity trading houses in Singapore may see increased activity. But this must be set against the broader drag of higher energy costs, compressed global growth, and reduced trade volumes that a protracted Middle East war would produce.
What Comes Next
The situation as of Saturday evening Singapore time remains acutely fluid. US sources indicate that the Trump administration is planning a “multiday operation,” Al Jazeera while Iran has vowed a “crushing” response and declared that all American and Israeli interests in the region are legitimate targets. Iran has already launched its first large-scale drone attack against Israel, firing “dozens of attack drones,” CNN and missiles have struck or been intercepted in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Abu Dhabi.
For Singapore, the immediate priorities are clear: protecting citizens in the region, managing aviation disruptions, monitoring energy market developments, and preparing economic contingency responses. But the deeper question — how Singapore calibrates its international position in a world where American military unilateralism has just restructured the Middle Eastern order by force — will occupy its leaders long after the immediate crisis passes.
Singapore has survived and thrived through every major geopolitical disruption of the past half-century precisely because it has never allowed ideology to override pragmatism, never allowed great-power alignment to foreclose its relationships, and never mistaken vulnerability for powerlessness. Those qualities will be tested severely in the weeks ahead.
The fires in Tehran are a long way from the Lion City. But in an interconnected world built on energy flows, shipping lanes, and open skies, the distance is much shorter than it appears.