Everything you need to know about the Strait of Hormuz
AN AVERAGE of more than 3,000 vessels transit the Strait of Hormuz each month. At its narrowest, this crucial chokepoint is just 21 nautical miles wide.
Whenever tensions in the Middle East threaten to boil over, the fear in the back of many minds is that this oil artery could effectively close to shipping.
Were that to happen, the more than 500m barrels of crude oil than travel eastwards out of the oil producing states would have to find another way of getting to market.
Breaking down transits in the first quarter of 2025 by country of beneficial ownership, Greek, Japanese, Chinese vessels dominate and would be most affected by any shutdown.
Panama-flagged vessels use the Strait of Hormuz the most, followed closely by Liberia-flagged and then Marshall-Islands flagged vessels.
In the event of escalation, it’s likely US and Israeli-linked vessels would be targeted. But as we’ve seen during the Red Sea crisis and through the above data, identifying said links is not straightforward and could leave other vessels vulnerable too.
But how likely is a complete shutdown? BIMCO chief safety and security officer Jakob Larsen said a full-blown conflict between the US/Israel and Iran would likely result in the effective closure of the strait.
As yet, it’s still open for business. Commercial traffic continues to flow both eastbound and westbound, but this could change very quickly.
Control Risks director Cormac McGarry said his company had assessed the risk of a total shutdown as unlikely. In doing so, Iran “would trigger an unwanted major response from the Gulf Arab states whose trade would be severely affected”, he said.
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