The conflict is escalating within the Gulf after the U.S. and Islrael’s attack on Iran and Iran’s subsequent retaliation — and observers are warning of oil price hikes across the globe with the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route.
The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has already halted some energy exports from the Middle East, with Tehran attacking ships and energy facilities, closing navigation within the Gulf and forcing production stoppages from Qatar to Iraq because of injury from Iranian missile strikes on neighbouring countries.
The Strait of Hormuz was impassible for a fourth day after Iran attacked five ships, choking off a key artery with threats to attack any others who attempt to cross.
The narrow sliver of sea within the Persian Gulf is essential for global trade and listed here are 4 numbers that may enable you make sense of why it’s so necessary.
March 24, 2021 – Earth Atmosphere – The strategically necessary shipping route of the Strait of Hormuz is pictured separating the nations of the United Arab Emirates and Iran. It also separates the essential water bodies of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. (Credit Image: © NASA/ZUMA Wire/ZUMAPRESS.com).
The strait lies between Oman and Iran and links the Persian Gulf north of it with the Gulf of Oman to the south and the Arabian Sea beyond.
At its narrowest point, the Strait is barely 29 nautical miles or 54 km wide, based on the International Energy Agency. The shipping lane, nevertheless, is barely two miles wide or around 3.7 km.
This makes the Strait of Hormuz a ‘chokepoint’ — or a narrow shipping lane along a worldwide trading route.
For the oil-rich nations along the Persian Gulf, this narrow sea passage is the one channel that connects the Gulf to the Arabian Sea.
All along the strait are major shipping hubs, including the key Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas.
On average, a complete of 20 million barrels of oil are shipped through the Strait of Hormuz each day, based on the International Energy Agency. This amounts to almost 1 / 4 of all seaborne oil trade, the agency says.
Get each day National news
Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.
Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq export most of their oil through this narrow sliver of sea, with only a few alternative routes available.
Many of the oil from the region is exported to Asian markets, primarily to China, India and Japan. China and India account for 44 per cent of all of the oil exported from this channel.
An infographic titled ‘Strait of Hormuz,’ created in Ankara, Turkiye, Feb. 28, 2026. (Photo by Bedirhan Demirel/Anadolu via Getty Images).
“With around 25% of the world’s seaborne oil trade transiting the Strait, and options to bypass it being limited, any disruption to flows through the Strait would have huge consequences for world oil markets,” the IEA said in a recent report.
It’s not only oil: global natural gas supply would even be hit if the strait stays closed for an extended time period. In response to the IEA, 20 per cent of the world’s total liquified natural gas (LNG) supply comes through this route.
About 93 per cent of Qatar’s and 96 per cent of the UAE’s LNG exports transit through the Strait of Hormuz, the agency said.
“There are not any alternative routes to bring these volumes to market,” a recent report said.
Oil trade through the Strait of Hormuz has long been the topic of conflict within the region.
In 1973, Arab producers, led by Saudi Arabia, slapped an oil embargo on Western supporters of Israel in its war with Egypt. Western countries were the essential buyers of Middle East crude on the time.
Through the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, the 2 sides sought to disrupt one another’s exports in what was called the Tanker War, which included strikes on greater than 100 oil tankers.
In January 2012, Iran threatened to dam the strait in retaliation for U.S. and European sanctions. In May 2019, 4 vessels — including two Saudi oil tankers — were attacked off the UAE coast, outside the Strait of Hormuz.
Three vessels, two in 2023 and one in 2024, were seized by Iran near or within the strait. A number of the seizures followed U.S. seizures of tankers related to Iran.
Last 12 months, Iran considered shutting down the strait after U.S. attacks on its nuclear facilities.
U.S. President Donald Trump said the American and Israeli military campaign in Iran is projected to go on for one more “4 to 5 weeks, but we have now capability to go far longer than that.”
Since Saturday’s initial attack in Iran, Trump said he has warned Iran “to not make any try to rebuild” its nuclear program.
“I said that from the start: they’re never going to have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said Monday afternoon on the Medal of Honor ceremony in his first live public remarks because the attack.
The stoppage of trade within the Strait of Hormuz is already hitting global oil and gas supplies.
Iraq has cut oil production by nearly 1.5 million barrels a day and people cuts could widen to greater than three million barrels a day inside days because the country runs out of storage and can’t export crude because of the Iran crisis, two Iraqi oil officials told Reuters on Tuesday.
Experts are warning that a chronic conflict would have a significant impact on global supply.
“We’ve got (already) seen a stoppage of the flows out of the Strait of Hormuz,” Go Katayama, principal insight analyst at Kpler, told Reuters.
“We’re type of entering an unprecedented era, much larger for my part than what we saw within the Ukraine-Russia crisis,” he added.
The IEA report warned that while much of the availability from the region is shipped to Asian markets, the ripple effects shall be felt in markets internationally.
An infographic titled ‘Strait of Hormuz,’ created in Ankara, Turkiye, on March 2, 2026. The Strait of Hormuz is often called probably the most strategic maritime chokepoints. (Photo by Mehmet Yaren Bozgun/Anadolu via Getty Images).
“The loss of virtually 20% of world LNG supply would fuel price volatility and necessitate further demand adjustments across key Asian and European import markets,” the agency said in its February report.
The consequences of the availability shock could be felt well beyond the markets directly counting on Qatari and Emirati LNG,” it added.
— With files from Reuters
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.