As of June 8, 2026, the Strait of Hormuz had been effectively closed for 94 days. That is the longest uninterrupted disruption of the world’s most important oil chokepoint in modern history, according to a Superprof explainer, and no reopening date was in sight.
Roughly 20 to 21 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum products normally pass through it each day, about 20 percent of global petroleum consumption. Qatar, the world’s largest LNG exporter, ships virtually all of its output the same way.
A narrow road to the sea
The strait links the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. Iran lies to the north and Oman’s Musandam Peninsula to the south. It runs about 104 miles and varies from roughly 35 to 60 miles wide, but the shipping lanes are tight: one two-mile lane inbound, one outbound, and a two-mile buffer between them.
Iran holds the islands of Qeshm, Hormuz and Larak. Its port city of Bandar Abbas, on the northern shore, is one of the region’s busiest naval and commercial harbors. The strait falls within the territorial waters of both Iran and Oman, so every ship passes through one country’s waters or the other.
The place has been valuable for centuries. The island of Hormuz was a wealthy medieval trading kingdom until the Portuguese navigator Afonso de Albuquerque seized it in 1507. In the Iran-Iraq War, the “Tanker War” phase saw hundreds of merchant vessels attacked in the Gulf, and the US Navy escorted Kuwaiti tankers under Operation Earnest Will.
What closure looked like
When armed conflict broke out between the United States, Israel and Iran, Iran closed the strait to foreign shipping. The IRGC forbade passage, boarded and attacked merchant ships, and laid sea mines. The strait effectively shut in early March 2026.
Tanker traffic collapsed by 90 percent. Oil prices went past $120 a barrel, the sharpest monthly rise ever recorded. QatarEnergy halted all LNG exports. Gulf producers cut output as storage filled, and Gulf states lost an estimated $1.1 billion a day in oil revenue. War-risk insurance made the passage unworkable for most shipping companies, so vessels took longer routes or sat in port. Plastics, fertilizer, pharmaceutical and electronics supply chains came under strain within weeks, and fuel shortages were reported across parts of Asia.
Diplomacy did not get far. A UN Security Council resolution calling for reopening was vetoed in early April. Tehran declared the passage open on April 17, and the IRGC reversed that within 24 hours. By mid-2026 a fragile ceasefire held, but almost no commercial shipping moved.
Few ways around
China, Japan, South Korea and India, the world’s largest oil importers, depend most heavily on Hormuz. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have bypass pipelines, but together they cover only a fraction of normal volumes. Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and Iran have no bypass at all.
The legal footing is murky too. Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, warships and merchant vessels alike enjoy “transit passage” through international straits. Iran is one of the few major maritime nations that has not ratified the convention, and it has at times claimed the right to regulate or restrict passage.
