The drones whine. The missiles roar. And the world’s most critical oil chokepoint stays shut.
Nearly two weeks after the United States and Israel launched military strikes on Iran, the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf through which roughly a fifth of the world’s traded oil passes — remains paralyzed by war. Hundreds of tankers and cargo ships are trapped on either side, while Iranian forces mine the passage and threaten any vessel that tries to leave.
On Thursday morning, the International Energy Agency, an intergovernmental advisory body, called the strait’s closure “the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.” Crude prices have surged. Gas prices in the U.S. have jumped roughly 61 cents from a month ago — the national average is now $3.60 a gallon, according to AAA. And the United Arab Emirates shut down the largest oil refinery in the Middle East on Tuesday after it was damaged in an Iranian drone attack the day before.
The economic tremors are only beginning, analysts say. The bottleneck is expected to ripple across consumer goods, steel, aluminum and roughly a third of the world’s fertilizer supply — a cascade that could send food prices soaring.
If Iran can use the supply chain chokehold to put the U.S. and its allies under “significant pressure,” then it “can exert pressure on the U.S. to find some kind of solution to the conflict,” said Torbjorn Soltvedt, a geopolitical risk analyst specializing in the Middle East.
U.S. forces have “struck more than 5,500 targets” in Iran in the past two weeks, U.S. Central Command Commander Adm. Brad Cooper said Wednesday. In a Tuesday press conference, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. bombers recently dropped “dozens of 2,000-pound GPS-penetrating weapons on deeply buried missile launchers across the southern flank.”
“We also have struck several one-way drone factories to get at the heart of their autonomous capability,” Caine said, adding that Iranian missile and drone attacks have “continued to trend downward.”
The military is reportedly weighing options to provide naval escorts to vessels seeking to traverse the Strait of Hormuz, as crew safety remains a major question amid talks to stabilize the world’s energy markets. Leaders of several other G7 nations discussed similar escort plans in a call Wednesday, according to a French official.
But experts say armed accompaniment alone is unlikely to restart trade.
“At the moment, unless hostility starts to dissipate, it’s probably still going to be a little bit of a trickle,” said Marcus Baker, global head of marine and cargo at Marsh, a global insurance brokerage firm.
The human dimension of the crisis came into sharp relief this week when Mussafah 2, a UAE-registered tugboat and Marsh client, sank in the strait after being rocked by an explosion while attempting to rescue another vessel damaged in a separate Iranian attack, according to Baker.
The episode captures the agonizing calculations facing ship captains stuck in the strait.
“In the back of their minds, they’re probably thinking, ‘Well, at some stage, we’ve got to run the gauntlet. And when do we do that? When do we get the instructions to do that? When do we feel it’s safe to do that?’” Baker told MS NOW. “I think some of them are wondering, ‘Well, am I going to see Christmas if I do this?’”
Anton Posner, CEO of supply chain management firm Mercury Group, said the calculus is straightforward for commercial mariners.
“No one’s willing to risk their life for somebody’s container of stuffed toys from China that’s making its way into Kuwait,” he told MS NOW. “These are people that are paid [for] a job. They’re not military, so they don’t have an obligation to risk their life any more than a clerk at Target does.”
Of the few ships that have made it through, a disproportionate number are Chinese vessels, said Posner — a reflection of Beijing’s close relationship with Tehran. China is the largest importer of Iranian oil, accounting for over 80% of the country’s crude oil exports.
Baker said he believes only one thing can restart trade through the strait: an end to the fighting. Until then, the ships wait, supplies dwindle, and somewhere in the Persian Gulf, a captain stares at the passage and does the math.
Josh Einiger contributed to this article.
Adam Hudacek is a desk associate for MS NOW covering national politics in Washington, D.C.