Strait of Hormuz: The World’s Pulse, Through Which Flow Global Oil and the Balance of Power

The Strait of Hormuz is among those rare places in the world that cannot be understood through geography alone. It must be seen through the combined lenses of geopolitics, energy flows, maritime law, strategic pressure, and global trade. It is the only समुद्री मार्ग that connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and further to the Arabian Sea. That is its greatest strength. For several major oil- and gas-producing countries of the Gulf region, access to the open ocean exists only through this passage. Therefore, it is not merely a waterway—it is one of the central arteries of global energy supply. This strait lies between Iran to the north and Oman’s Musandam Peninsula to the south. Its width is estimated between about 35 to 60 miles, that is roughly 55 to 95 kilometers. Within it, there are two separate navigation lanes for large vessels, each about 2 miles wide, with a 2-mile separation zone between them. However, the actual traffic corridor for ships is much narrower—each directional lane is about 2 miles wide, separated by a 2-mile buffer zone. Its depth is suitable for large oil tankers. That is why, although it may appear wide on a map, in operational terms it is a highly controlled and narrow transit passage.

To its north lies Iran, and to its south the Musandam region of Oman. Nearby are strategic islands such as Qeshm, Hormuz, and Larak, along with Iran’s important port of Bandar Abbas. Legally, it is an international navigation strait, where both the geographical presence of coastal states and international navigation rights apply simultaneously. Yet from a commercial navigation perspective, it is a highly controlled and sensitive ‘chokepoint’.

A small caution is necessary regarding its ‘size’. In common discourse, people tend to ask about its length, width, and depth as if they are uniformly defined. But in maritime geography, different sources measure its length differently—sometimes as the entire water body, sometimes only as the narrow passage. Therefore, the most reliable and widely cited facts relate to its width, navigation lanes, and depth. Most of it is deep enough for large oil tankers to pass, with depth generally estimated between 200 to 330 feet, that is about 60 to 100 meters. It is precisely this depth and controlled traffic scheme that makes it not an ordinary sea route, but a strategic corridor suited for heavy-tonnage vessels. The most practical way to understand its ‘full form’ is this—a relatively wide maritime space, but with very narrow, directionally segregated lanes governed by international rules.

Under normal conditions, it has been one of the busiest and most crucial energy routes in the world. Data summaries linked to IMF PortWatch and other maritime tracking analyses indicate that in normal times, more than 30,000 vessels pass through it annually. That means, on average, about 100 to 140 ships move through it every day. During the war-induced disruptions of 2026, UNCTAD observed that vessel movement almost came to a halt. Meanwhile, Clarksons and other tracking-based reports suggest that before the conflict, the average was around 125 ships per day, which in the recent crisis dropped to just a handful per day. This means that the answer to how many ships pass daily through Hormuz is not a fixed number, but a range—three digits in times of peace, and near stagnation in times of crisis.

The question of where ships come from and where they go is equally important, because that reveals the true economic role of this strait. On its western side, in the Persian Gulf, lie major energy terminals of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia’s eastern coast, and the United Arab Emirates. Crude oil, condensates, petroleum products, and liquefied natural gas from these countries pass through this route toward Asia and other markets. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimated for 2024 that nearly 83 percent of LNG passing through Hormuz was destined for Asian markets, with China, India, and South Korea among the largest recipients. A significant share of the energy exports moving through this strait flows toward Asian importers—especially China, India, Japan, and South Korea. In other words, this route does not merely carry ships out of the Gulf—it directly fuels Asia’s industrial energy appetite.

If we look at annual trade volumes, the importance of Hormuz becomes even clearer. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), in 2024 the flow of oil and petroleum products through this strait averaged about 20 million barrels per day, which represents a major portion of global seaborne oil trade and roughly one-fifth of global oil consumption. UNCTAD, in March 2026, classified it among the world’s most critical maritime chokepoints, stating that it carries nearly one-quarter of global seaborne oil trade. In addition, significant volumes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and fertilizers also pass through this route. In the case of LNG alone, the EIA estimated that around 20 percent of global LNG trade passed through Hormuz in 2024, with Qatar as the primary source. Therefore, if annual trade is understood not merely in dollar terms but in physical flow, this strait carries billions of barrels of oil, vast quantities of LNG, and major fertilizer supplies to the world every year. The monetary value fluctuates with market prices, but in terms of volume, it remains a central artery of the global energy system.

To understand this trade more concretely, one must recognize that the cargo passing through Hormuz is not limited to ‘oil’. UNCTAD clearly states that significant volumes of LNG and fertilizers also transit this route. Any disruption here does not merely raise fuel prices—it also affects the food supply chain, as gas and fertilizer costs rise. During the 2026 disruption, UNCTAD warned that rising costs of energy, shipping, insurance, and fertilizers could have a broader impact on the cost of living. This is why calling Hormuz merely an oil route is incomplete—it is a multi-sectoral global corridor linked to energy, industry, agriculture, and maritime insurance.

From a historical perspective, the importance of Hormuz predates the oil era by centuries. This strait has long connected trade between Persia, Arabia, and the Indian Ocean region. As noted in broader references such as Britannica, this region has been part of a long history in which the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, the island of Hormuz, and surrounding ports formed crucial nodes of the Indian Ocean trade system. In the modern era, its strategic prominence rose sharply when oil exports became central to the global economy. During the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, the so-called ‘Tanker War’ saw attacks on vessels and an increase in international naval presence. Since then, whenever tensions between Iran and Western countries have escalated, Hormuz has come into focus. The crisis of 2025–26 once again demonstrated that even without fully closing the strait, threats, attacks, or insurance risks alone can severely disrupt traffic.

Now comes the most sensitive question—who owns it? The direct answer is that Hormuz is not the private property of any single country, nor a unilaterally controlled channel. Iran lies along its northern coast, and Oman’s Musandam region along its southern edge. The main shipping lanes mostly fall within Omani territorial waters, while the northern portion lies close to Iranian-controlled areas. However, legally, it is an international strait used for navigation. Therefore, its governance is not determined solely by coastal control, but also by international maritime law. Part III of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) establishes the principle of “transit passage”, under which the right of continuous and expeditious passage through such straits is recognized. In simple terms, while states exist on the shores, the use of the route is not governed solely by their will. UNCLOS is an international agreement that defines maritime rules—how far a country’s sea extends, where ships can travel, who has rights over marine resources, and how international sea routes are to be used. It is often described as the ‘constitution of the seas’. “Transit passage” means that ships of the world have the right to pass through essential maritime routes without obstruction.

This brings us to the question of tolls and charges. Under normal international arrangements, there is no established or universally accepted toll tax for merely transiting the Strait of Hormuz, unlike certain canals. The core principle of transit passage under UNCLOS is that such routes should not be obstructed. However, during the 2026 crisis, this issue became highly contentious. Iran reportedly attempted, at a practical level, to impose coordination requirements, safe passage conditions, or quasi-toll arrangements on some vessels. But this is neither a normal nor an undisputed legal framework—it has been widely challenged internationally and considered controversial or even unlawful by many parties. Therefore, the precise answer is this: under normal peacetime conditions, no established universal toll is paid for crossing Hormuz; but during the 2026 wartime crisis, claims and reports of Iran imposing fee-like arrangements emerged, whose legality remains widely disputed.

It is also important to understand whether any country can ‘close’ it. The answer again operates on two levels. Legally, in international navigation straits, the suspension of transit passage is not considered acceptable. But in practical reality, as 2026 demonstrated, a route can be rendered nearly ineffective without formal legal closure—through attacks, risk escalation, insurance costs, mining threats, naval intimidation, or selective permission systems. In the context of the 2026 conflict, the mere threat of confrontation was sufficient to divert over 90 percent of commercial traffic. This means that maritime law exists in its own domain—but so do geopolitical power and the politics of fear. Hormuz stands as the most vivid example of this tension.

The Strait of Hormuz cannot be understood by looking at a map alone. It is a place where geography is small, but impact is immense. It is a passage where the daily count of ships is not just a maritime statistic, but a barometer of energy geopolitics. It is a narrow strip through which flows the oil that powers Asia’s factories, fuels India’s energy markets, drives China’s industrial machinery, stabilizes Japan and South Korea’s import balances, and ultimately influences global inflation. Therefore, the history of Hormuz is not merely a story of the past, its present is not merely about shipping traffic, and its law is not merely written in books. Together, they form a living laboratory of global power balance in the 21st century.

(The author is a journalist.)