Middle East shipping routes pull in opposite directions
Splash 247 · Sep 15, 2026
Iran has expanded its Strait of Hormuz blacklist to 77 ships, adding another 21 vessels in less than two weeks and extending its warning to insurers, P&I clubs and classification societies servicing the designated tonnage. The Persian Gulf Strait Authority said on Monday that its non-compliance list had been updated and warned marine insurers, clubs …
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The corridor
Strait of Hormuz
Global chokepointMiddle EastThe only sea route out of the Persian Gulf, and the single most concentrated point of failure in world energy trade. Everything loaded at Ras Tanura, Kharg Island, Basra or Ras Laffan leaves through a channel whose shipping lanes are roughly two miles wide in each direction.
- There is no meaningful pipeline bypass for most Gulf crude. Saudi Arabia's East-West line to the Red Sea and the UAE's Habshan–Fujairah line together carry a fraction of what transits the strait, so a closure cannot be routed around at volume.
- Hull war-risk premiums for the Gulf are quoted per transit as a percentage of a ship's insured value. A listed-area change by the Lloyd's Joint War Committee reprices every subsequent voyage immediately — faster than any freight index reacts.
- Owners withdraw tonnage from a genuinely contested strait before rates are renegotiated, so available tanker supply tightens ahead of, not after, the quoted rate move.
- Because a fifth of LNG trade shares the same water, energy shocks here hit gas and oil benchmarks together rather than in sequence.
- Saudi East-West Pipeline to Yanbu on the Red Sea — partial relief for Saudi barrels only.
- UAE Habshan–Fujairah pipeline, bypassing the strait for a portion of Abu Dhabi's exports.
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