From 95 Ships to 10: The Hormuz Shutdown That Could Hit Your Fuel Bill

Ninety-five ships. That was the daily rhythm of the Strait of Hormuz as recently as early 2025 — a relentless maritime heartbeat keeping the world’s energy economy alive. Now that number has collapsed to fewer than ten ships a day. The question splitting energy analysts, geopolitical strategists, and ordinary consumers is whether this is a temporary shock or the opening act of a genuine global crisis.

The Strait of Hormuz sits between Iran and Oman, roughly 21 miles wide at its narrowest navigable channel. Through it flowed an average of 20 million barrels of oil every single day in 2024. That figure represents approximately one-fifth of all the oil consumed on Earth. The strait also carries about 19 percent of the world’s traded liquefied natural gas, mostly exported from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

When 55 of those daily 95 ships were oil tankers, the math was straightforward. Now, with traffic below 10 vessels a day, the arithmetic has turned alarming.

The 95-to-10 Collapse: What Triggered Hormuz’s Sudden Shutdown

The Strait of Hormuz has long been called the world’s most critical oil chokepoint. But that description can feel abstract until you watch the traffic data collapse in real time. The IMF’s PortWatch platform, built as a joint initiative with the University of Oxford and Delft University of Technology, was designed precisely for this purpose — tracking global maritime traffic to catch supply chain shocks before they become consumer crises.

PortWatch data showed the collapse was not gradual. It was sudden. When conflict escalated in the region, maritime insurers pulled back war-risk coverage almost immediately. Without insurance, ship operators could not justify sending vessels into the strait. The route became financially impassable before it became physically unnavigable.

That distinction matters enormously. This is not a blockade enforced by guns alone. It is a blockade enforced by actuarial tables.

Position A: Why Fewer Than 10 Ships a Day Signals a True Energy Crisis

Analysts arguing for the crisis position start with a simple, uncomfortable fact. There is no adequate alternative to the Strait of Hormuz at current volume. The Suez Canal handles different trade flows. Overland pipelines from the Gulf region exist but carry only a fraction of what Hormuz moves. Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline, for example, has a capacity of roughly 5 million barrels per day — just one quarter of Hormuz’s normal throughput.

The LNG situation is arguably more acute. Qatar is the world’s largest LNG exporter. Most of its export terminals face the Persian Gulf, meaning the gas must pass through Hormuz to reach European and Asian buyers. There is no pipe-and-forget alternative for LNG the way there is for crude oil in some corridors.

Energy markets respond to anticipated shortages, not just current ones. Even a two-week disruption to 20 million barrels of daily oil flow sends price signals cascading through fertilizer costs, plastics manufacturing, airline tickets, and home heating bills. The people who feel this fastest are not oil executives. They are farmers in South Asia buying diesel for irrigation pumps and families in Northern Europe facing winter heating bills.

Position B: Why Global Energy Markets Have More Shock Absorbers Than 1973

The counterargument is not that this disruption is painless. It is that modern energy markets have built-in buffers that did not exist during the oil crises of the 1970s. The International Energy Agency coordinates strategic petroleum reserves across member countries. A coordinated release can inject hundreds of millions of barrels into global markets within weeks of a decision.

Global oil production is also far more geographically distributed than it was in past crises. The United States now produces over 13 million barrels per day, making it the world’s largest producer. Canada, Brazil, Norway, and Guyana have all expanded output significantly in recent years. These producers can reroute supply to Asia and Europe faster than they could a decade ago, because the export infrastructure now exists.

Some analysts also note that the conflict disrupting Hormuz damages producers inside the Gulf as severely as consumers outside it. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and the UAE depend on Hormuz access to generate government revenue that funds their entire national economies. That mutual vulnerability creates strong incentives for rapid diplomatic resolution.

“The Strait of Hormuz is the world’s most important oil chokepoint. Any serious disruption to oil flows through this strait could have a significant impact on global oil prices and supply.”

— U.S. Energy Information Administration

What PortWatch Data Actually Shows About Chokepoint Disruptions

PortWatch has tracked previous chokepoint disruptions in real time. When Houthi attacks in the Red Sea drove shipping away from the Suez Canal in late 2023 and through 2024, PortWatch documented how rerouting via the Cape of Good Hope added significant time and cost to global supply chains. Shipping rates spiked. Delivery windows stretched by weeks.