Just enter the tracking platform Marine Traffic to understand the magnitude of the paralysis. Dozens of red dots, representing colossal merchant ships, crowd motionless off the coasts of Oman and the United Arab Emirates. The steel giants do not dare to cross a strip of water that, at its narrowest point, barely measures 33 kilometers.
The Strait of Hormuz It is the main energy artery of the planet. A fifth of the world’s oil – some 20.9 million barrels per day – and a vital percentage of global liquefied natural gas (LNG) sail through its waters daily. Today, that step is de facto blocked. Half a century later, an atavistic terror has awakened in Western capitals: the fear of reliving the energy collapse and rampant inflation of 1973.
The spark that set the markets on fire jumped after a war escalation unprecedented in the Middle East, triggered by the attacks by the United States and Israel that culminated in the assassination of the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Tehran’s response has not been long in coming: a rain of drones and missiles on American allies and trade routes that has caused a blockade de facto of the Strait of Hormuz.
The crisis broke out after an unprecedented escalation of war in the Middle East. The offensive by the United States and Israel (named “Operation Epic Fury”), which culminated in the assassination of the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sparked a quick response from Tehran: a rain of drones and missiles on American allies and strategic infrastructure in the Gulf.
The physical consequences have been immediate. An Iranian drone attack forced to paralyze the Ras Laffan facilities in Qatar, the largest LNG export plant in the world, and forced Saudi Arabia to temporarily close units of its gigantic Ras Tanura refinery. The violence has directly reached the water: the British agency UKMTO reported the attack on an oil tanker near Oman, leaving several injured, and the energy expert Javier Blas warned of the explosion of another ship anchored off the coast of Kuwait, causing an oil spill into the sea.
Given this panorama, transport giants such as Maersk or MSC They have ordered their fleets seek refuge. The panic has rewritten logistics rates: the cost of leasing a supertanker (VLCC) has shot up by 600%, hovering around $200,000 a day, while insurers have increased war risk premiums by up to 50%, as Alex Longley warns in Bloomberg.
The echoes of the past are terrifying. Saul Kavonic, head of energy research at MST Marquee, warns in Fortune that a prolonged closure of Hormuz could have an impact “three times the scale of the energy crisis we saw in the 1970s.”
What could happen if the tanks overflow
The problem with ships not sailing is not only that the oil does not reach its destination, it is that it accumulates at the point of origin. The industry is facing a logistical collapse due to lack of physical storage.
Iraq has been the first major victim of this logistical collapse. As you have detailed OilPricethe country has had to begin to turn off the tap on gigantic fields such as Rumaila (the largest in the world), withdrawing about 1.5 million barrels a day from the market, a figure that could double if the crisis persists. According to sources from the commercial sector in Financial TimesIf the blockade continues, Kuwait will be the next to give up in a matter of days, followed by the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia, thanks to its immense storage capacity, could last between two and four weeks before being forced to cut its extraction.
Financial markets reflect absolute short-term stress. As analyst John Kemp’s charts illustrateBrent crude oil futures have entered a backwardation extreme, with a difference of almost 11 dollars per barrel between short- and long-term contracts, placing it in the 98th-99th percentile in history. This signals an acute and immediate shortage of barrels, especially for refiners in Asia, which have already begun to cut back on operations.
If this funnel continues for three months, the unwritten rule of firms like Goldman Sachs suggests that crude oil could become more expensive by an additional $40, turning the barrier of $100 per barrel in the new normal.
The differences with 1973
Despite the drama and the fact that a barrel quickly exceeded $80, the macroeconomic scenario is not a carbon copy of the Arab embargo. Global resilience has changed:
- The new oil sheriff: Today, the US economy depends much less on crude oil to generate wealth (barely 0.4% of GDP compared to 1.5% in 1979). Furthermore, the American country is now the world’s largest producer of oil, which protects it from supply shocks, as pointed out Fortune.
- The “Myopia of Hormuz”: Mukesh Sahdev, Chief Analyst at XAnalysts, points in Fortune that the market is overreacting. The main objective of the US (neutralizing the Iranian leadership) has already been met, and Donald Trump himself has suggested that the military campaign could be short, which would limit the long-term impact.
- Alternative routes to rescue: Saudi Arabia has a colossal lifeline. Your pipeline East-Westwhich connects the eastern fields with the Red Sea, has the capacity to pump about 7 million barrels per day, bypassing Hormuz. There are already signs that Riyadh is redirecting flows this way, as Blas explains. For its part, Iraq has managed to resume a modest flow of 50,000 barrels per day to Türkiye after a brief pause, as the analyst collects Bachar El-Halabi.
- Safety mattresses: Global onshore reserves reach 2 billion barrels, enough to weather the initial storm.
For its part, the Trump Administration has tried to calm the markets by promising Navy naval escorts and state insurance of up to $1 billion per ship through the International Development Finance Corporation (DFC). However, this is not a magic solution. As they warn in the sectorcaptains are the ones who decide to set sail, and sailing surrounded by US military destroyers often makes them more attractive targets for Iranian drones.
The other side of the coin
In every crisis there are those who profit from chaos. And in this war, the real economic battles are being fought far from the Persian Gulf.
On the one hand, China’s masterstroke. While Europe trembles, Beijing breathes a sigh of relief thanks to millimetric planning. In 2025, China took advantage of low prices to spend $10 billion on 150 million barrels of “cheap” and sanctioned crude oil (Russian, Iranian and Venezuelan) that it did not need, accumulating reserves for 96 days. In addition, there are some 166 million barrels of Iranian crude stored on ships off the Asian coast, far from the danger of Hormuz, ready to be absorbed by China, according to OilPrice.
To protect its market, Beijing already has ordered its refineries to immediately stop exports of diesel and gasoline. But its true shield is not crude oil: as analyzed by Professor Hussein Dia in The ConversationChina’s massive commitment to electric vehicles and solar panels is a national security policy. Unlike the ships in Hormuz, sunlight cannot be blocked by the US Fifth Fleet.
On the other hand, there is European hypocrisy. The geopolitical irony is palpable in the Old Continent. While the EU applauded the end of its dependence on Russian pipeline gas, the blockade of Qatari LNG ships has left Europe exposed. On the verge of suffocation, Brussels is now pressuring a devastated Ukraine to quickly repair the Druzhba pipeline and allow Vladimir Putin’s crude oil to flow again to Hungary and Slovakia. As if that were not enough, Washington has issued indefinite exemptions so that Rosneft’s network of German refineries continues to operate without fear of sanctions, prioritizing security of supply in Berlin over punishment to Moscow, according to OilPrice.
For its part, the crisis is greatly benefiting the United States industry. US chemical manufacturers are gaining competitive advantage because they use cheap natural gas, while their European and Asian rivals suffer from the rise in gasoline prices. Companies like Exxon They are already sending shipments of gasoline from the Gulf of Mexico to Australia to make up for the lack of Asian shipments. While Canada, with its vast reserves in Alberta and companies like Suncor or Cenovus, is shaping up as the world’s safest “safe haven” provider. On the contrary, in Asia, petrochemical companies such as the Singaporean PCS they are already declaring causes of force majeure due to the breakdown of supply chains.
The tyranny of geography
As the economist Gonzalo Bernardos points out in the special The Sixthwe have entered “the era of uncertainty,” where the global economy depends on three uncontrollable variables: how long the war lasts, whether Hormuz will remain closed, and how many more facilities will be destroyed.
The supposed exhaust valves are a mirage. OPEC+ promised to inject an additional 206,000 barrels, but experts they are blunt: that excess capacity is physically within the Persian Gulf; If the ships cannot leave, that oil does not exist for the rest of the world. The war on other fronts is not helping either, with Russian fleet tankers paralyzed in the Mediterranean after suffering attacks from Ukraine, as analyst Stephen Stapczynski points out.
Ultimately, the laws of politics and sanctions written in offices rarely beat the dependency on infrastructure. The West hyperventilates over the rebound in inflation, but hope lies in a stark paradox: it is not in Iran’s interest to keep Hormuz blocked indefinitely, since it is the main entry route for its own food and medicine. as described German Welle.
However, until the dust settles and diplomacy works, the fate of the global economy will not be decided on Wall Street. It will remain in the hands of a few ship captains who have decided, out of pure survival, to turn off the engines.
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