Investment & war

The pro-oil factors: reconstruction, routes and infrastructure

The oil services sector will benefit from the need to invest in the crude oil industry. Stocks, meanwhile, rallied strongly

by Marzia Redaelli

8 June 2026

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Key points

Over the shock
Services in focus
Reconstruction
New Routes
Long-term goals

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz also had consequences on the stock market: risk perception increased and repositioned the oil sector in a new light. Indeed, the energy shock seems destined to leave long-term effects in the priorities of companies and, in turn, in those of investors.

Over the shock

The International Energy Agency (Eia) reports that global investment in energy will rise to USD 3.4 trillion in 2026, of which 1.2 trillion will be in oil, natural gas and coal. The bulk of the resources allocated, however, will finance electricity infrastructure, renewables, and nuclear power. In the oil sector, therefore, volatility is expected in the medium term: on the one hand, demand for crude oil and derivative products remains high, on the other, companies are measuring investments to see whether the tightness of the market will persist beyond the supply shock long enough to justify new large projects, which take years and billions of dollars to implement.

Services in focus

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when the alarm about global energy subservience from Russia and the Middle East sounded, the stocks of oil service companies have also risen on the wave of demand for supplies to try to overcome dependence on oligopolists. These companies provide everything but the oil, from technology to engineering to storage, required to fill the void in Western infrastructure.

"If oil demand proves more resilient than many current forecasts assume," says Maria Shkolnik, Investment specialist Oil & Gas, at Ubp, "years of underinvestment could leave oil markets undersupplied later in the decade. Just as governments and companies replenish stocks and strategic reserves after recent shocks'.

The big oil services groups are Slb, Halliburton, Baker Hughes, Technip Fmc. Since the US attack on Iran on 27 February, however, Italy's Rosetti Marino, Norway's Seadrill (now registered in Bermuda), Canada's Ces Energy Solutions and Japan's Modec have also gained well.

The outlook, according to Shkolnik, remains good, however, as the reconstruction, redeployment and replacement cycle of reserves continues regardless of what happens diplomatically. Weapons are silent, but construction teams are not. 'For patient investors, this kind of multi-year, non-discretionary spending is an important supporting factor for oil services stocks, which face not one, but three demand factors acting simultaneously, and any one of them alone would be enough to keep them busy for years'.

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The reconstruction

'The first factor is reconstruction,' explains Shkolnik, 'as the conflict has caused severe damage to energy infrastructure throughout the Gulf. Pipelines, refineries, gas fields and export terminals have been affected, and getting them back up and running is an expensive and meticulous job that only specialised service companies are able to do. Even Saudi Arabia's East-West Pipeline, one of the few existing alternatives to the Strait of Hormuz, was attacked in April, reducing transport capacity by around 700,000 barrels per day. And that damage is not going to repair itself'.

New Routes

The second factor is the redirection of routes, because the crisis has brutally highlighted how much the world still depends on a single, narrow sea passage. "In April 2026," Shkolnik continues, "Saudi Arabia announced five new logistic corridors for cargo transport, expanding land connections to Red Sea ports, while Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates jointly launched an alternative route to the Strait of Hormuz, linking oil fields to a port on the Gulf of Oman. The construction and upgrading of alternative export routes - pipelines, terminals and storage facilities - requires exactly the kind of engineering expertise and operational capabilities that oilfield service companies can provide.

Long-term goals

The third factor is the long-term structural change that has been underway since before the conflict to catch up after a decade of underinvestment, when the governments of many countries put energy security back on the agenda, so as not to be at the mercy of Opec and extractors in general. 'Existing infrastructure in the region,' Shkolnik concludes, 'allows for partial diversion of flows, but offers no redundancy at the system level, and solving this problem will require years of continued investment.

Marzia Redaelliredattore
Luogo: Milano
Lingue parlate: italiano, inglese, francese
Argomenti: Financial markets, asset management, macroeconomics
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