WASHINGTON, July 15 — A proposed fee on tanker traffic transiting the Strait of Hormuz could add between 50 cents and one dollar to the cost of each barrel of oil shipped through the strategic waterway, according to an assessment by the International Energy Agency. The figure, cited in an IEA analysis, is based on a plan that has been under discussion among regional states seeking to monetise the chokepoint’s strategic value.
The fee would represent a modest increment on the current cost of shipping, but analysts caution that the broader risk lies in any disruption to the 17 million barrels per day that passed through the strait in 2024, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That volume equals roughly 20 percent of global oil consumption and 30 percent of all seaborne oil trade.
The numbers are stark enough that even a temporary interruption would send shockwaves through energy markets.
The chokepoint’s arithmetic
The Strait of Hormuz connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the open ocean. On a typical day in 2024, Saudi Arabia pushed 7 million barrels per day through the narrow waterway. Iraq shipped 3.5 million bpd, the UAE 2.5 million bpd, and Kuwait 2 million bpd.
Those four nations alone account for the overwhelming majority of crude exports that transit the strait. Qatar also moves 80 million tons of liquefied natural gas annually through the same passage.
Any disruption to tanker traffic would therefore crimp both oil and LNG supplies to markets in Asia, Europe, and beyond. The EIA classifies the Strait of Hormuz as the world’s most important oil chokepoint. The record shows that the margin for error is razor-thin: a major outage could push prices up by $10 to $30 per barrel, based on historical precedent.
Lessons from Abqaiq
The 2019 attacks on Saudi Aramco’s Abqaiq and Khurais facilities offer a useful case study. On that timeline, drone and missile strikes temporarily knocked out 5.7 million bpd of Saudi production — roughly half the kingdom’s output. The disruption sent global oil prices spiking by 15 percent in a matter of days.
Sources familiar with the incident note that the Abqaiq attack targeted processing infrastructure, not a transit chokepoint. A closure of the Strait of Hormuz would be a far more consequential event, cutting off supply from multiple producers simultaneously and affecting a volume nearly three times larger than the Abqaiq outage.
The proposed fee, by contrast, is a commercial mechanism, not a military one. But it introduces a new variable into an already tense maritime environment. The IEA’s projection of $0.50 to $1.00 per barrel in added shipping costs is modest, but the agency’s analysts have also warned that any fee regime could create friction with tanker operators and insurers, potentially slowing traffic and raising the risk of cascading delays.
What to watch
The key question in the coming weeks is whether the fee plan gains formal backing from the states that control the strait’s approaches. Iran has long threatened to close the waterway during periods of tension, though it has never followed through on that threat. A fee structure would represent a different kind of leverage — one that monetises the strait rather than weaponising it.
For global oil markets, the arithmetic is unforgiving. With 17 million barrels a day at stake and a price shock of $10 to $30 per barrel on the table in any disruption scenario, even a modest fee adds a new layer of cost and uncertainty to the world’s most vital energy corridor.
The timeline for a decision remains unclear, but the numbers are already on the table.
