Sometimes a single spark in a 21-kilometer corridor is enough to set the planet on fire. The Strait of Hormuz, this ribbon of water barely wider than the English Channel, is its cruel demonstration. Here, oil does not just flow: it transits, under high tension, in the bellies of ships that know a single drone, a mine, or a threat is enough to paralyze the world. And at the beginning of this year 2026, this corridor of fear closed in on itself, plunging the global economy into an unprecedented crisis.
The Pulse of the World in Twenty-One Kilometers
Twenty-one kilometers. This is the minimum width of this passage where, in normal times, nearly 20 million barrels of oil transit per day — representing approximately 20% to 25% of the world’s seaborne oil trade. Twenty-one kilometers where Iran, from its steep coastlines, observes, threatens, and, since February 27, 2026, strikes for real. For Tehran understood long ago that this strait is not just a line on a map: it is a geopolitical weapon in its own right. Closing Hormuz means asphyxiating Asia, making stock markets tremble, and awakening the ghosts of 1979 and 1988.
But the game has changed. In 2025 and 2026, tensions did not subside. They metamorphosed into open conflict. The Iranian nuclear deal, already moribund, was agonizing in the corridors of Vienna. Washington, under the new Trump administration, oscillated between threat and action, while Tehran enriched its uranium to levels never achieved before. And in this context, Hormuz became once again the symbol of the impasse: a corridor where every tanker is a potential hostage, every American patrol a possible provocateur. On February 27, 2026, the volume of goods transiting through the strait collapsed by 96%. In a matter of days, the world tipped over.
The Figures of Asphyxiation: A Historic Closure
The statistics are implacable. Before the crisis, in 2025, nearly 15 million barrels per day of crude oil and an additional 5 million barrels of petroleum products transited through this strait, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The bulk came from Saudi Arabia (31.4% of volumes), Iraq (18.3%), the United Arab Emirates (16.3%), Iran (12.1%), and Kuwait (11.9%). Virtually all of Qatar’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) — the world’s second-largest exporter with over 112 billion cubic meters exported in 2025 — transited through this same passage. In total, nearly 20% of global LNG circulated through Hormuz.
Since the closure, the numbers are staggering. On March 21, 2026, the Executive Director of the IEA called the situation ‘the greatest threat to global energy security in all of history.’ The production cuts forced upon the major exporting countries of the Arab-Persian Gulf represent about 11 million barrels per day, combining crude oil and refined products. This is a daily volume higher than that lost during both oil shocks of the 1970s combined: in both 1973 and 1979, losses amounted to 5 million daily barrels. Granted, global consumption back then was half of what it is today, but the scale of the shock remains unprecedented.
Let us compare with history. During the Tanker War of the 1980s, which lasted from 1984 to 1988 within the framework of the Iran-Iraq conflict, 451 ships were attacked and damaged, including 11 sunk. Iraq was responsible for 283 attacks, Iran for 168. Yet, even at its climax, this war did not close the strait. Traffic dropped by 25%, but prices eventually stabilized, or even decreased, as global supply remained abundant and demand grew slowly. In 1980, at the start of the Iran-Iraq war, the reduction in oil supply represented only 2.6% of global production, leading to a price increase of just 5.6%.
In 2026, it is a whole different dimension. The closure of the strait reduces global supply by about 20% — nearly eight times more than in 1980. Prices exploded: Brent crude jumped from 69.85 dollars a barrel on February 26, two days before the strikes, to 92.69 dollars one week after the start of the conflict, then to 103.40 dollars in mid-March. This represents a 32% increase in 17 days for Brent, and 35.5% for WTI. Futures contracts, which lock in future prices, still anticipate 81 dollars in September 2026 and 72 dollars in March 2027 — a sign that markets are bracing for a prolonged crisis.
The Specter of 1979 and 1988: Lessons from Another Era
To understand the scale of the current shock, one must go back to the Iranian Revolution of 1977-1979 and the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988. In 1977, a year before the revolution, OPEC members produced 10.658 billion barrels. In June 1977, WTI crude was worth 13.90 dollars. The revolution paralyzed the Iranian economy, caused production to plummet, and prices climbed to 39.50 dollars in 1980-1981 — a 67% increase. Persian Gulf production dropped by 47% between 1979 and 1985, falling from 10.643 to 5.593 billion barrels. It was not until 1990, a year and a half after the end of the war, that global production returned to its pre-war levels. And it was only in 1998, a decade later, that prices returned to their pre-revolution level.
Today, the crisis is different but more brutal. On March 3, 2026, Bloomberg reported that Iraq was beginning to suspend operations at the Rumaila oil field due to a lack of storage space — tankers being unable to leave the strait. On March 4, Pakistan, a country dependent on oil imports, officially requested Saudi Arabia to redirect its supplies to the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea. Saudi Arabia, for its part, was redirecting more and more oil via its East-West pipeline to Yanbu, and the United Arab Emirates was using its pipeline to Fujairah. But these pipelines, with a combined capacity of 3.5 to 5.5 million barrels per day, only compensated for a fraction of the deficit — leaving about 12 million barrels per day blocked.
Cascading Consequences: A Global Economy on Reprieve
The repercussions are not limited to the price per barrel. They are spreading like wildfire across the global economy. Japanese refiners, who source 95% of their crude oil from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, and Qatar, asked the government to release part of their strategic stocks. About 70% of this oil is delivered by ships crossing Hormuz. China, which absorbs nearly 40% of the oil leaving the Persian Gulf and possesses around one billion barrels of strategic reserves (amounting to a few months of supply), saw its supply threatened.
Qatar, which had already suspended its gas production on March 2 and declared force majeure on its gas contracts on March 4, sounded the alarm. On March 6, its Minister of Energy, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, warned that if the war continued, other Gulf producers might be forced to stop their exports: ‘This would collapse the economies of the world.’ European LNG importers, who obtain between 12% and 14% of their gas from Qatar via Hormuz, began desperately searching for alternatives. Charter rates for LNG tankers multiplied sixfold, with some desperate importers paying ten times the normal rate.
Inflation, already rampant in many countries, risks surging once again. Central banks, which were struggling to contain prices, find themselves facing a major oil supply shock. OPEC+ committed to increasing its production by 206,000 barrels per day — a drop in the ocean compared to the 11 million lost. Barclays and Goldman Sachs highlighted the risks of a prolonged spike if the strait remained closed. The IEA announced a release of 400 millions barrels of public reserves, including 172 million from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve — far more than the 30 million released during the Libyan civil war in 2011.
The Coalition Struggling to Exist
Faced with this disaster, the international response is struggling to take shape. The United States attempted to build a maritime surveillance coalition, but allies are hesitant. Europe, traumatized by the torpedoed nuclear deal, is seeking a middle path. France, the United Kingdom, and Germany are navigating between firmness and diplomacy, aware that a direct military confrontation could set the entire Middle East ablaze.
Operation ‘Earnest Will’ in 1987, in which the United States reflagged Kuwaiti tankers under the American flag to protect them, showed the limits of interventionism. On July 24, 1987, the Bridgeton, carrying the US flag, hit a mine. Prices initially rose, then gradually declined because the disruption to trade remained minimal. In April 1988, Operation ‘Praying Mantis’ destroyed nearly 40% of the Iranian navy, leading to an immediate drop in prices. But in 2026, the situation is different: Iran possesses drones, cruise missiles, and pocket submarines that make any naval protection complex.
In the short term, it is theoretically possible to escort three to four commercial vessels per day with seven to eight destroyers. But maintaining such an operation sustainably over several months requires colossal resources. And then there are the mines. If Iran decides to mine the strait — as it did in the 1980s — even a ceasefire would not be enough. Minesweeping would take weeks, if not months. Marine insurers of the Joint War Committee in London have already included the waters around Oman in their list of high-risk areas. Most shipping companies, such as Maersk, have chosen to bypass via the Cape of Good Hope — a detour of several thousand kilometers that increases costs and delays.
Hormuz, Mirror of a Disordered World
Beyond oil and military strategies, the Strait of Hormuz is the symbol of a world where rules are fading away. The liberal order, built on the freedom of the seas and the security of trade routes, is being chipped away by regional powers that refuse to comply with a game they did not write. Iran, certainly, but also China, which observes, calculates, and discreetly reinforces its maritime presence in the region.
For Beijing also has vital interests here. In 2025, China bought 91% of the oil exported by Iran. It absorbs nearly 40% of the oil leaving the Persian Gulf. A crisis in the strait would be a shock to its economy, but also an opportunity: to assert its navy, offer its mediation services, and increase its influence at the expense of an America deemed unpredictable. India, which accounts for 15% of the region’s crude oil shipments passing through Hormuz, and Japan, at 10%, are also on the front line.
And then there is Israel. The Jewish state, which observes Iran’s nuclear program with growing anxiety, knows that Hormuz is Tehran’s shield. Striking nuclear installations means risking the closure of the strait. This is the equation that paralyzes strategists in Jerusalem as much as in Washington. Iran, for its part, has perfected the art of graduated threat: seizing a tanker here, threatening a convoy there, leaving room for doubt. It is a strategy of elbowing that hurts without breaking, forcing Western powers into permanent, costly, and exhausting vigilance.
The Time for Decisions
We are in June 2026. The negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program are stalling. Economic sanctions are stifling the Iranian population without breaking the regime’s determination. And the Strait of Hormuz, even if some voices mention a reopening under tension, remains the place where the 21st-century world could tip over.
This is not inevitable. But it is a warning. As long as the major powers fail to reach a credible agreement with Tehran, as long as the region remains the theater of dead-end rivalries, Hormuz will continue to haunt the nights of strategists and markets.
Oil still flows, by other routes, at other prices. But the corridor of fear remains open, and the world, despite itself, continues to stumble over these twenty-one kilometers that keep the globe in suspense.
(*) Isaac Hammouch is a Belgian-Moroccan journalist and writer. Author of several books and op-eds, he focuses on societal issues, governance, and the transformations of the contemporary world.
