If the war in the Middle East drags out for more than six months, economies around the world will suffer “real impacts”, AFP reports quoting the head of French oil giant TotalEnergies.

“If it’s more than six months, we will have some real impacts. All the economies of the world will be damaged,” Chief Executive Officer Patrick Pouyanne has said in an interview with Chinese state broadcaster CGTN.

Pouyanne notes that, in peacetime, around 20 per cent of global oil production passes through the strait, but with “what is stuck today, you have 10 million barrels of oil per day which cannot exit” the Gulf.

“And we cannot find the oil elsewhere on the planet,” the energy boss has said in the interview on the sidelines of the China Development Forum in Beijing.

“If this conflict lasts three, four months, we can swallow it. Today we manage to amortise this shock because we have inventories,” he said.

But, he has warned that a prolonged conflict going beyond six months would be a blow to the global economy.

“So again, I hope we’ll find solutions quickly for this war,” he said.