UAE vows energy exports won’t be held hostage by Iran war

The UAE has a message for the oil markets: regional war or not, the crude keeps moving. Speaking at the Hili Forum in Abu Dhabi on September 7, 2026, Anwar Gargash, the UAE’s presidential diplomatic adviser, announced that Abu Dhabi is actively building out alternative trade corridors to make sure Iran cannot hold its energy exports hostage, no matter how the conflict evolves.

Iran has struck UAE territory with missiles and disrupted oil tanker traffic since the conflict formally ignited on February 28, 2026, following US and Israeli strikes on Iran. The Strait of Hormuz, through which a significant portion of global oil supply flows, has sat under credible threat ever since.

Building around the bottleneck

The UAE is expanding eastern port capacity, extending pipeline networks, and building out rail infrastructure specifically to reduce dependence on the Strait as the single chokepoint for its energy exports.

The Habshan-Fujairah pipeline is the clearest example of this thinking already in action. That existing link bypasses the Strait entirely, connecting oil fields inland to the port of Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman. By early June 2026, the UAE had used facilities like this one to recover oil exports to roughly 85% of pre-war levels, a notable rebound given the scale of disruption that followed February’s strikes.

Gargash was direct about what freedom of navigation means to Abu Dhabi. At the forum, he stated that freedom of navigation “is not a concession to be granted,” framing it not as a diplomatic courtesy Iran can dangle in negotiations but as a baseline condition for any future regional order.

A relationship that may take decades to repair

Gargash acknowledged that the UAE sees value in a functional relationship with Tehran, while being realistic about the timeline. Rebuilding trust, he said, could take decades.

The UAE suspended all financial transactions with Iran in August 2026, a step that formalized the economic rupture the conflict had already created. Before the war, UAE banks and trading firms served as a significant conduit for Iranian commerce, including trade flows that Western sanctions had pushed into gray-market channels.

The February 28 strikes by the US and Israel triggered the sequence of events that forced Abu Dhabi’s hand. Iran responded with missile attacks on UAE territory, a significant escalation that put the Gulf’s wealthiest and most economically open state directly in the crossfire.

What this means for Gulf energy stability

For oil markets, the UAE’s ability to recover to approximately 85% of pre-war export volumes by early June 2026 is a stabilizing signal. It suggests that even in a scenario where the Strait faces persistent threat, not all Gulf production is equally vulnerable. Producers with existing bypass capacity, like the UAE, can sustain output; those without it face more acute exposure.

Gargash’s speech was ultimately a signal to multiple audiences at once: to markets, that the UAE intends to remain a reliable energy supplier; to Iran, that Abu Dhabi is building leverage it did not have before; and to regional partners, that the UAE sees freedom of navigation as a non-negotiable foundation for any post-conflict order in the Gulf.

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