MANAMA, July 8 — The Strait of Hormuz, a waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, remains arguably the world’s single most important chokepoint for oil shipments. For all the noise surrounding alternative energy, the salient point is that roughly 20% of all petroleum liquids consumed globally pass through this narrow channel every day. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, that amounted to approximately 17 million barrels per day in 2023.
The numbers are stark. The shipping lanes themselves are only two miles wide in each direction, meaning a single disabled vessel or a deliberate obstruction could paralyse the flow of oil to much of Asia.
The strait’s depth is about 60 metres, which allows the largest crude carriers to transit, but the physical margins for error are razor-thin.
The Producers and the Customers
Four major Gulf producers depend on the strait for their exports. Saudi Arabia pumped roughly 10 million barrels per day in 2024, all of it passing through these waters. Iraq, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates shipped 4.5 million, 2.7 million and 3.2 million barrels per day respectively in the same period.
Any disruption would not merely inconvenience these countries; it would sever their primary revenue stream. On the consuming end, the exposure is concentrated in Asia.
China imported about 12 million barrels per day in 2024, India 5 million, and Japan 3.5 million. Those three nations alone account for a significant share of global demand, and none has a practical alternative route for the volumes required. The EIA has formally identified the strait as a key risk to global energy security.
History of Threats
Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the strait, most recently in 2023 during a period of heightened tensions with the United States and its allies. The threat is not new, but it has never been fully executed. The practical difficulty of sealing a waterway patrolled by the U.S. Fifth Fleet, which is based in Bahrain and maintains a permanent presence to guarantee freedom of navigation, would be considerable.
The most recent serious incident came in 2019, when a series of attacks on tankers near the strait temporarily pushed oil prices up by 15%. The attackers were never conclusively identified in open-source reporting, but the market reaction demonstrated how quickly a relatively minor event can cascade into price spikes.
The Military Calculus
The U.S. Fifth Fleet’s mission is straightforward: keep the strait open. In practice, that means deterring Iranian mine-laying, fast-boat swarms, or anti-ship missile strikes. The strait is narrow enough that even a few mines could halt traffic for days while clearance operations proceed.
The depth of 60 metres, while sufficient for supertankers, is shallow enough to make submarine operations difficult but not impossible. For all the military hardware arrayed on both sides, the fundamental vulnerability remains the strait’s geometry.
Two shipping lanes, with no redundancy, carrying a fifth of the world’s oil. That is not a strategic problem that can be engineered away; it is a geographic fact.
What to Watch
The immediate question is whether Iran will test the new U.S. administration’s resolve. The U.S. administration has taken a hard line on Iranian oil exports, and Tehran has historically responded with threats against the strait. The 2023 tensions did not escalate to a full closure, but the underlying incentives have not changed.
For Japan, India and China, the calculation is even simpler. They need the oil, and there is no Plan B that comes close to matching the volume that passes through Hormuz.
The EIA’s assessment that the strait represents a key risk to global energy security is not an abstraction; it is a description of reality. The next crisis is a matter of when, not if.
