“A company’s resilience depends more on choices made before the disruption than on actions taken in the midst of it.” MIT professor Yossi Sheffi wrote that in The Resilient Enterprise two decades ago. In April 2026, the palm oil supply chain is demonstrating that principle in real time.
The Strait of Hormuz closed. And palm oil, the world’s most-consumed vegetable oil and a base ingredient in shortening, bread, and foodstuffs across the Gulf, kept moving.
The routes that held
The industry moved fast. Saudi Arabia’s ports at Jeddah and Yanbu on the Red Sea coast continued to receive shipments. Sohar and Salalah in Oman, positioned outside the Strait, stepped up. Colombo in Sri Lanka became an interim discharge point, with cargoes offloaded and redistributed onward.
What appeared to be improvisation was in fact the activation of relationships and infrastructure built over the years. The alternative port configurations that buyers and shippers are relying on today were not invented in March 2026. COVID-19 demonstrated that the palm oil supply chain could absorb significant shocks while continuing to operate. When labour shortages tightened supply and demand uncertainty rattled markets, the industry responded with forward purchasing, diversified sourcing and stronger inventory planning. Those responses did not disappear when the pandemic ended. Each disruption added something to the system’s institutional memory.
What the data reflects
The trade relationship between Malaysia and the Gulf is both strong and long-lasting. Across the MENA region, palm oil imports have grown from 3.2 million tonnes in 2020 to 4.3 million tonnes in 2025. In the two months before the crisis hit, Malaysian palm oil exports were already running at 2.6 million metric tonnes, up approximately 406,000 metric tonnes year-on-year. That foundation held when it needed to. Even as the disruption unfolded, underlying demand remained firm, with cargoes continuing to be dispatched from Malaysia for key Gulf markets. In March, shipments bound for the UAE reached approximately 44,000 metric tonnes, with a further 21,000 metric tonnes allocated to Iran and 12,000 metric tonnes to Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, buffer stocks are estimated at around 80,000 metric tonnes, while GCC food manufacturers typically hold between one and three months of consumption in reserve. When the disruption came, that stock bought the industry time to respond.
Resilience is cumulative
There is a tendency in moments like this to attribute supply chain resilience to real-time decision-making. The more accurate reading is that resilience is cumulative. What is keeping palm oil moving toward Gulf markets in April 2026 is not primarily the decisions being made now. It is the decisions made before: to diversify discharge options, to build buffer stock discipline, to build a network wider than the most obvious route.
Sheffi’s research showed that resilience pays dividends in ordinary times, not just in crises. The port relationships and procurement disciplines carrying the load right now were already at work before February, reducing costs, shortening response times, and building the familiarity that makes rerouting possible within days rather than weeks. The crisis revealed their full value.
What comes next
Whether pressure builds or eases from here depends partly on how quickly the industry consolidates the routes being discovered in real time. Salalah and Sohar were not new ports in February. They are emerging as anchor points in the current disruption.
Supply chain history suggests that periods of forced exploration tend to produce durable change. When the Ukraine conflict disrupted sunflower oil supplies, buyers across the region turned to palm oil as a stable, scalable alternative, and the industry responded with forward purchasing and diversified sourcing that outlasted the crisis itself.
Periods of disruption tend to expand what the system can sustain. Every disruption this supply chain has navigated has left it more capable than it was before. This one will, too.
Belvinder Sron is Chief Executive Officer of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council
