Why Little Was Done to Head Off Oil's Strait of Hormuz Problem

For more than four decades, energy analysts, military strategists, and policy experts warned that the Strait of Hormuz — a 21-mile-wide chokepoint between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula — represented the single greatest vulnerability in the global energy system. Through it flows roughly 20 million barrels of oil per day, one-fifth of global petroleum consumption and a quarter of all seaborne oil trade [1]. Yet when Iran finally made good on its perennial threat to close the strait in March 2026, the world discovered that almost nothing had been done to prepare for the scenario everyone said they feared most.

The result has been the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market [2], a price shock that sent Brent crude above $100 per barrel for the first time since 2022 [3], and a scramble to deploy emergency reserves and bypass infrastructure that was never designed to handle a crisis of this magnitude.

This is the story of how it happened — and why so little was done to prevent it.

The Crisis Unfolds

The chain of events began on February 28, 2026, when the United States and Israel launched "Operation Epic Fury," a coordinated military strike involving nearly 900 sorties in 12 hours against Iranian nuclear facilities, missile batteries, air defenses, and leadership targets [4]. Among those killed was Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, whose death was confirmed by Iranian state media on March 1 [5].

Iran's retaliation was swift and asymmetric. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched missile and drone attacks against U.S. military bases in the region, Israeli territory, and Gulf states. But the most devastating move was economic: on March 4, the IRGC declared the Strait of Hormuz closed to all "hostile" vessels [6]. Rather than attempting a conventional naval blockade — which U.S. naval forces could have countered — Iran deployed a combination of cheap explosive-laden drone boats, naval mines, and anti-ship missiles that turned the narrow waterway into what Fortune described as an "Iranian kill box" [7].

Tanker traffic collapsed by 92%. Over 150 ships anchored outside the strait, unwilling to risk passage [8]. On March 8, Mojtaba Khamenei — elected to succeed his father as Supreme Leader — vowed to keep the strait closed indefinitely [9]. By March 12, Brent crude had peaked at $126 before settling around $100, and U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright acknowledged publicly that the U.S. was "not ready" to escort oil tankers through the waterway [10].

Source: FRED / U.S. Energy Information Administration

Data as of Mar 11, 2026CSV

A Chokepoint Hiding in Plain Sight

The Strait of Hormuz has been recognized as the world's most critical oil transit chokepoint for decades. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has published regular assessments of its strategic importance since at least 2012, consistently noting that any disruption — "even temporarily" — could create "substantial supply delays and raise shipping costs, potentially increasing world energy prices" [1].

The warnings were hardly abstract. Iran has threatened to close the strait with metronomic regularity since the 1979 revolution. During the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, the "Tanker War" phase saw mines laid in the Persian Gulf and armed speedboats harassing shipping [11]. In 2011-2012, Iranian Vice President Mohammad-Reza Rahimi explicitly threatened closure amid nuclear tensions [12]. In 2019, Iran warned it would block all maritime traffic if barred from using the waterway itself [11].

Each crisis produced a burst of policy interest — and then faded without meaningful structural change. The fundamental arithmetic never shifted: 20 million barrels per day of oil, plus substantial volumes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and one-third of global fertilizer trade, continued to flow through a narrow strait bordered by a hostile state that regularly promised to shut it down [13].

The Bypass Pipelines That Can't Replace a Strait

The closest thing to a structural solution has been a pair of overland pipelines designed to route oil around the Strait of Hormuz. But their existence has arguably deepened the complacency rather than addressed the vulnerability.

Saudi Arabia's East-West Pipeline, known as the Petroline, stretches roughly 750 miles from the oil hub at Abqaiq on the Persian Gulf coast to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. Following recent expansions, the pipeline itself has a design capacity of approximately 7 million barrels per day [14]. The UAE's Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline (ADCOP) runs 248 miles from the Habshan fields to the port of Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, with a capacity of roughly 1.8 million barrels per day [14].

On paper, these two pipelines could move up to 8.8 million barrels per day. In practice, the number is far lower. The Petroline's two terminal facilities at Yanbu have a combined loading capacity of only about 4.5 million barrels per day — a bottleneck that renders the pipeline's theoretical capacity moot [15]. And even at maximum throughput, both pipelines together can handle less than half of the 20 million barrels that normally transit the strait.

Source: EIA / CNBC / Engineering News-Record

Data as of Mar 14, 2026CSV

As Engineering News-Record reported, the bypass infrastructure "was sized for a short disruption. This is not that" [15]. For four decades, Gulf oil producers made a calculated bet: any Hormuz closure would be temporary, measured in days or weeks, and partial bypass capacity was sufficient insurance [15]. That bet has now been called.

Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Iraq have no viable overland bypass routes that avoid either Hormuz or Saudi territory [1]. Their oil and gas exports are effectively stranded. The pipelines that exist have never been stress-tested at maximum capacity for sustained periods, and the logistics chains needed to re-route substantial flows remain untested [14].

The Emergency Reserves: A Band-Aid on a Hemorrhage

The International Energy Agency's response was historically unprecedented — and historically insufficient. On March 11, the IEA's 32 member countries unanimously agreed to release 400 million barrels from strategic reserves, the largest coordinated drawdown in the agency's 52-year history [16]. The United States committed 172 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as its share [17].

But the math is unforgiving. The world is missing roughly 20 million barrels of daily supply. At that rate, 400 million barrels provides approximately 20 days of coverage — and that assumes the reserves can be drawn down at the needed pace, which they cannot [18]. The U.S. SPR's maximum drawdown rate is only about 4.4 million barrels per day on paper, but in practice the 2022 release managed only about 1 million barrels per day due to aging infrastructure and pipeline constraints [18].

Markets were unimpressed. Brent crude closed at $100.46 on the day after the IEA announcement, with traders signaling that the release was a Band-Aid on a hemorrhage [3]. As one CNBC analysis noted, the record stock release "will only close up to a quarter of the supply gap triggered by the closure of the Strait" [17].

Asia Bears the Brunt

The disruption has hit Asian economies hardest. In 2024, 84% of the crude oil and condensate flowing through the Strait of Hormuz was bound for Asian markets [1]. Japan faces the most acute risk, followed by South Korea, India, and China [19].

India stands particularly exposed: nearly half of its crude oil imports and roughly 60% of its natural gas supplies transit the strait [19]. The disruption threatens to blow out India's fiscal deficit. Japan and South Korea, which lack strategic reserves on the scale of China's, face potential industrial shutdowns within weeks.

China is comparatively better positioned — not because it planned for this specific scenario, but because its broader energy diversification strategy has provided buffers. Beijing holds approximately 1.2 billion barrels of crude stockpiles, providing roughly 108 days of import cover [19]. China's rapid buildout of renewable energy and electric vehicles means its oil demand growth has already plateaued. But even China will face pressure if the closure persists, as it will be forced to compete for Atlantic basin cargoes, tightening global markets further [19].

The crisis extends well beyond oil. The strait handles significant volumes of LNG — Qatar and the UAE account for 99% of Pakistan's LNG imports, 72% of Bangladesh's, and 53% of India's [19]. A cascade of effects is now rippling through fertilizer markets, semiconductor supply chains (the strait carries helium critical to chip production), and global food systems [13].

Why Nothing Was Done

The question at the heart of this crisis is not whether anyone saw it coming — everyone did — but why decades of warnings produced so little action. The answer lies in a confluence of misaligned incentives, geopolitical complacency, and the irresistible economics of the status quo.

The cheap-oil assumption. Building bypass infrastructure is enormously expensive. A new pipeline with the capacity to meaningfully offset Hormuz flows would cost tens of billions of dollars, require years of construction, and need to cross sovereign territories with their own political complexities. As long as oil flowed freely through the strait — as it had for decades — the investment case for alternatives remained theoretical.

The short-disruption fallacy. Every prior Hormuz crisis was brief. Iran threatened but never followed through. Even during the Iran-Iraq War, the strait was never fully closed. Policymakers and energy companies internalized a model in which Hormuz disruptions lasted days or weeks, not months [15]. Bypass infrastructure was designed to this assumption. No one stress-tested the scenario of a protracted closure.

Misaligned interests among Gulf producers. Saudi Arabia and the UAE built bypass pipelines to protect their own export revenues, not to solve a global commons problem. Qatar, Kuwait, and Iraq — which together export millions of barrels per day through Hormuz — lacked the geography or political will to build alternatives. No regional mechanism existed to coordinate collective investment in bypass capacity.

U.S. complacency as a net exporter. The American shale revolution transformed the U.S. from the world's largest oil importer to a net energy exporter. This reduced the urgency of Hormuz security in domestic policy debates, even as the strait remained critical to allies and to global prices that directly affect American consumers [18]. The U.S. maintained a naval presence in the Gulf but did not push allies to invest in structural alternatives.

The energy transition distraction. The growing consensus that the world would transition away from fossil fuels — eventually — created a further disincentive to invest in new oil infrastructure. Why build a $30 billion pipeline to bypass Hormuz if oil demand is supposed to peak within a decade? The irony is that the transition is nowhere near complete, and the world remains as dependent on Gulf oil as ever.

The Geopolitical Reckoning

The Strait of Hormuz crisis has exposed a fundamental tension in global energy security: the world's most critical energy infrastructure sits in the most geopolitically volatile region on earth, and no amount of strategic reserves or emergency coordination can substitute for structural resilience.

The Council on Foreign Relations has described the situation as "an unprecedented energy crunch" that reveals "the limits of the post-1974 energy security architecture" [20]. The IEA, created in response to the 1973 oil embargo precisely to manage supply disruptions, is discovering that its tools were designed for a different era — one of temporary disruptions and cooperative producers, not a shooting war in the Gulf.

The Atlantic Council noted that the crisis underscores the need for a fundamental rethink of how the U.S. and its allies approach energy security, moving beyond reactive stockpiling toward proactive infrastructure investment and accelerated energy diversification [21].

For now, the world is living through the scenario that was always foreseeable but never forestalled. Oil prices above $100. Emergency reserves draining. Bypass pipelines running at capacity but covering barely a quarter of the shortfall. Asian economies teetering. And a new Iranian Supreme Leader who has every incentive to keep the strait closed for as long as possible.

The $100 barrel was always coming. The only question was when — and whether anyone would be ready. The answer, it turns out, is no.