The disruption<\/a> to Gulf shipping has caused Brent crude oil prices to jump sharply from around US$70 (\u00a353) a barrel before the crisis began to more than US$100<\/a>. Global trade in a wide range of other goods \u2013 from consumer products to agricultural raw materials \u2013 is being affected too.<\/p>\n But the crisis has also highlighted a broader issue: that global trade depends on a surprisingly small number of narrow waterways, which are often called maritime \u201cchokepoints\u201d. Here is a guide to the chokepoints that matter most for global trade, and how vulnerable each one is to disruption.<\/p>\n Hormuz is the world\u2019s most critical energy chokepoint. Connecting the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea, it carries around<\/a> 39% of the seaborne crude oil trade and 19% of natural gas. Unlike most trade chokepoints, there is no viable alternative to Hormuz for Gulf states to export their energy.<\/p>\n Iran has periodically threatened to close the strait of Hormuz since the 1980s. But the disruption caused to shipping since late February, when the US and Israel first launched airstrikes across Iran, is the most serious escalation in decades. It has caused the largest<\/a> oil supply disruption in history and soaring global oil prices.<\/p>\n The consequences of the current disruption to Gulf shipping extend beyond energy<\/a>. The Gulf region handles over 26 million containers annually, with major fertiliser exports<\/a> passing through here too. Prolonged shipping disruption will therefore have a direct effect on global food production costs.<\/p>\n The Suez canal links the Red Sea with the Mediterranean, cutting at least ten days off journey times between Asia and Europe. The waterway handles 10% of global seaborne trade<\/a>, including 22% of container traffic, 20% of car shipments and 10% of crude oil.<\/p>\n Controlled by Egypt, it is not easily threatened directly. But the waterway is not immune to accidents, as demonstrated by the grounding of the Ever Given container ship in 2021. The vessel blocked the canal for six days, disrupting nearly US$10 billion<\/a> in trade.<\/p>\n Story continues <\/p>\n The bigger vulnerability of this chokepoint is the Bab el-Mandeb, the strait at the southern tip of the Red Sea. Attacks on commercial shipping by the Iran-backed Houthi group in Yemen between 2023 and 2025, which it carried out in response to Israel\u2019s war against Hamas in Gaza, forced many operators<\/a> to reroute around Africa.<\/p>\n This cut traffic through the Suez canal from over 26,000 vessels in 2023 to around 13,000 in 2024<\/a>. Houthi leaders have recently threatened to resume attacks on commercial shipping in retaliation for the Israeli and US attacks on Iran, warning in official communications<\/a> that their \u201cfingers are on the trigger\u201d.<\/p>\n Connecting the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, the Panama canal handles around 2.5% of global seaborne trade \u2013 a modest share, but concentrated in high-value and strategic cargo such as containerised goods, cars and grain. The canal carries around 40% of all<\/a> US containerised shipments, valued at US$270 billion annually.<\/p>\n Its vulnerability stems both from the climate and geopolitics. In 2023 and 2024, severe droughts caused water levels<\/a> in the canal\u2019s freshwater reservoirs to fall sharply, forcing restrictions on vessel numbers and size. Then, in early 2025, Trump threatened to take<\/a> control of the canal. He cited concerns over the operation of some of its ports by Hutchison, a Hong Kong-based company.<\/p>\n The Malacca strait is the busiest shipping lane on Earth. It carries 24% of all global seaborne trade<\/a>, including 45% of seaborne crude oil and 26% of cars. The waterway is also home to Singapore, which hosts the second-busiest container port in the world.<\/p>\n Malacca is the primary gateway through which China, Japan and South Korea receive their energy imports. Nearly 80% of China\u2019s oil imports<\/a> pass through here, a dependence Beijing calls the \u201cMalacca dilemma\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n Piracy remains a persistent concern, with over 130 incidents<\/a> reported in the Malacca strait in 2025. But the greater risk is geopolitical. Any escalation in tensions between China and the US<\/a> or India<\/a> over maritime dominance in the region could severely disrupt passage through the strait.<\/p>\n Malacca is also exposed to natural disasters<\/a>, including tsunamis and volcanic activity. The Boxing Day tsunami<\/a> in 2004, for example, caused significant damage to coastal infrastructure at the strait\u2019s southern entrance.<\/p>\n The Turkish straits \u2013 the Bosphorus and Dardanelles \u2013 are the only sea route between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. They carry 3% of global seaborne trade. While this share may appear small, it includes around 20%<\/a> of global wheat exports from Ukraine, Russia and Romania.<\/p>\n At just 700 metres wide at its narrowest point, running through the centre of Istanbul in Turkey, navigation is complex and minor collisions are common. Under the Montreux convention<\/a>, Turkey controls military access to the straits, a power Ankara has used since Russia\u2019s 2022 invasion of Ukraine to restrict the movement of warships while keeping commercial traffic open.<\/p>\n Further escalation in the Black Sea area could disrupt this balance<\/a> and shake global grain markets. The region\u2019s high seismic activity<\/a> adds another layer of risk.<\/p>\n The current crisis in the strait of Hormuz has thrown into sharp relief just how vulnerable global trade is to disruption due to its reliance on a handful of narrow waterways. But the five waterways mentioned above are not the only trade chokepoints.<\/p>\n There are as many as 24 maritime chokepoints<\/a> in the world, including other major waterways like the Taiwan, Dover and Bering straits. Each of these waterways are exposed to their own combination of geopolitical tension, climate change, piracy, accidents or natural disasters.<\/p>\n This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The conflict in Iran has disrupted energy and commodity markets. Iran has effectively closed the narrow strait of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[2369,1885,38,6028,3459,102,34,39,101,10772,1720],"class_list":{"0":"post-21994","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-strait-of-hormuz","8":"tag-arabian-sea","9":"tag-disruption","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-global-oil-prices","12":"tag-global-trade","13":"tag-hormuz","14":"tag-iran","15":"tag-persian-gulf","16":"tag-strait-of-hormuz","17":"tag-strait-of-malacca","18":"tag-suez-canal"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116239808732166640","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/6172a79453d619ba67dcf752fdf35137.jpeg\")
<\/a> The strait of Hormuz, which has effectively been closed since the outbreak of the war in Iran, is the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea. Peter Hermes Furian \/ Shutterstock<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/a> China refers to its heavy reliance on the narrow strait of Malacca for energy imports and trade as the \u2018Malacca dilemma\u2019. Peter Hermes Furian \/ Shutterstock<\/a> <\/p>\n