Geographic Narrowness Meets Strategic Importance
The strait runs between Iran on its northern shore and the Musandam Peninsula of Oman to the south, with the United Arab Emirates holding a portion of the southwestern coast. Its width varies along its length, but at the narrowest point the waterway is just 33 kilometers wide. Within that corridor, ships must navigate through separate inbound and outbound lanes that measure only three kilometers each. That leaves little room for error, and it makes the strait inherently vulnerable to disruption.
Iran has threatened to close the strait in past conflicts. During the Iran-Iraq War from 1980 to 1988, Tehran warned it would block the waterway in response to Iraqi attacks on its oil facilities. More recently, during disputes over international sanctions in 2018 and 2019, Iran again signaled it could restrict passage. In 2019, Iranian forces seized the British-flagged tanker Stena Impero while it was transiting the strait, an action that demonstrated the fragility of commercial shipping in the area. The United States has long recognized the strategic stakes. The U.S. Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, patrols the region, and in 2019 the Navy launched Operation Sentinel, an international maritime security operation aimed at protecting vessels passing through the strait.
Limited Alternatives on Land
Land-based pipelines offer some buffer but cannot replace the full volume that transits the strait. Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline can move up to 5 million barrels per day, and the UAE’s Habshan-Fujairah pipeline has a capacity of 1.5 million barrels per day. Their combined throughput covers only a fraction of the roughly 17 million barrels of oil that move through the strait each day, along with the massive LNG volumes. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated in 2024 that a full closure of the Strait of Hormuz could push oil prices above $100 per barrel. That figure reflects the strait’s outsized role in global energy supply chains, where any disruption would affect markets worldwide, not just the immediate region.
Policymakers and military planners have studied this chokepoint for decades, and contingency plans exist. But early findings from past crises suggest that no plan fully replaces the strait’s capacity. While alternative routes provide some redundancy, they are not designed to handle the full throughput that the waterway carries every day. A prolonged closure would strain global supply chains and push prices sharply higher for consumers and businesses alike.
What Keeps the Waterway Open
For now, the strait remains open and the daily flow of oil and LNG continues. The U.S. Fifth Fleet’s presence in Bahrain underscores the importance the United States places on keeping the passage secure, and Operation Sentinel remains in place to deter or respond to threats. But the geography makes the strait a persistent flashpoint. Any new escalation between Iran and the United States or its allies could test the alternative pipelines quickly.
The stability of the Strait of Hormuz is directly tied to the cost and availability of oil and natural gas for consumers worldwide. Talk to your doctor if you have concerns about how global energy disruptions might affect your health or access to medical supplies. The encouraging part is that years of study and planning have produced contingency measures, though no plan fully replaces the waterway’s capacity. The facts on the ground — a narrow channel, a single sea passage, and the world’s reliance on the energy that flows through it — mean that the strait will remain one of the most strategically important chokepoints on the planet.
