It is news in the last few hours that the Strait of Hormuz was closed following the attack on 28 February 2026 (known as “Operation Epic Fury”) by the United States against Iran, marking a point of no return. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s a key transit point for global oil and liquefied natural gas trade 33 km wide (with two shipping corridors of 3 km each) sandwiched between Iran to the north and Oman to the south.
At the moment, according to the most authoritative international newspapers, there are as many as 150 oil tankers stopped (among these ships there are also those transporting crude oil and liquefied natural gas) and two have been hit by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (the Pasdaran), who used missiles and drones to impose a blockade of the Strait in retaliation for the Israeli-American military operation.
From Hormuz they pass about 27% of the world’s oil and the 20% of the gas (about 20 million barrels per day), which has become fundamental since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
Precisely for this reason, closing this “tap” could have enormous consequences, leading to a dramatic increase in the prices of these resources, with consequences for the whole world. Furthermore, the closure means that all services connecting the ports of the Persian Gulf are subject to unspecified delays, itinerary changes or timetable adjustments.
But who is most at risk from this situation now?
Which countries would suffer most from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and what Europe risks
The countries that would suffer the most from a prolonged closure of the Strait are definitely the Asian ones, given that 80% of the oil and gas resources destined for them come from here.
The largest importer of crude oil across the strait is China, which could therefore suffer severe shocks despite being an ally of Iran. With the great eastern nation there is also Japan, South Korea and India. For the latter it is above all a question of food safety however, given that 85% of LPG for cooking comes from there.
And we Europeans? We too are at risk: although we are not the first customers of crude oil from the Gulf, we are in fact dependent on Qatar for gas. If the closure of the Strait of Hormuz were to continue, the price of gas on the TTF in Amsterdam (the main virtual wholesale market for trading natural gas in Europe) would risk tripling.
Riyadh and Abu Dhabi’s race for cover
To mitigate the vulnerability linked to the constant geopolitical tensions near the Strait of Hormuz, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have invested massively, over the last decade, in alternative logistical solutions for the transport of crude oil by land, so as to reduce dependence on the maritime routes most exposed to threats of blockage or sabotage.
Riyadh has strengthened its “oil highway”, a network of pipelines that cuts across the entire Arabian Peninsula. This system allows crude oil to be conveyed from the eastern fields directly to the terminals Red Seathus moving the center of gravity of exports towards the west and avoiding passing through the Strait.
Abu Dhabi, on the other hand, has built the strategic Habshan-Fujairah oil pipeline, which allows oil to be transported behind the Strait, making it flow directly into the port of Fujairah, overlooking the Indian Ocean. This way, tankers can load crude oil in open waters, avoiding entering the bottleneck of the Gulf.
But despite these ways to get around the problem, theEIA (Energy Information Administration) noted that the transit capacity of these alternative routes is very limited compared to the total volumes we talked about at the beginning, with an estimated flow rate of around 2.6 million barrels per day, around 87% less than what passes through Hormuz. This means that the paths thought up by the two Middle Eastern countries would only be able to compensate for the 13-15% approximately of the usual flow, leaving global markets exposed to a massive deficit.
