Worried about Strait of Hormuz inflation to come? The world economy has one word for you: Plastics

The price of naphtha may not keep you up at night when you think about the inflation yet to hit the economy from the U.S.-Iran war and Strait of Hormuz closure, but perhaps it should. 

As gas prices continue to rise alongside crude oil

, costs of petroleum derivatives — petrochemicals — are also rising, and that eventually may have a far wider impact on consumers than gas prices. 

The cauldron of petrochemicals sounds like a high school chemistry class study guide: benzene, butadiene, ammonia, styrene, naphtha and many other oil-based byproducts. Known as feedstocks in industry parlance, they go into everything in your life, from hospital gloves to pasta packaging. And the costs of these chemicals are rising even if consumers won’t notice for a while. 

But Stanislav Krykun, CEO of DST-Pack, a Poland-based packaging company, is already seeing it on the factory floor. “Our plastic suppliers in China have raised prices by roughly 15% recently, and they’ve pointed to higher raw material costs and general market uncertainty as the reason,” Krykun said. 

Krykun’s factory produces packaging for companies all over the world, including the U.S., and he can see now what consumers will see later: increased prices.  

Most people aren’t focused on Advent calendars right now — those chocolates hidden under perforated punch-outs to celebrate each day of the season. But Krykun is thinking about it. 

Orders are already ramping up for the 2026 Christmas holiday season, and these calendars often include molded plastic trays inside, and these are going to get more expensive. 

“We’re currently working with dozens of clients on Advent calendar production, many of whom are at the sampling or early production stage. Due to recent developments, we’ve had to recalculate costs for many of these projects specifically because of the increase in plastic prices, which directly impacts the cost of these inserts,” Krykun said. 

One key thing to understand is that the impact of these price increases is not immediate. “It’s quite gradual,” Krykun said. Companies that had already confirmed production and locked in pricing for upcoming shipments were still able to proceed at previous cost levels. “However, all new orders placed over the past couple of weeks are already being quoted at higher prices,” Krykun said. 

“Packaging needs to be produced, shipped to the manufacturer, filled with product, and only then distributed to retail. So any price changes typically become visible on shelves with some lag rather than instantly,” Krykun added.