It’s news in the last few hours that Strait of Hormuz was closed following the attack on February 28, 2026 (known as “Operation Epic Fury”) by the United States against Iran marked 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 navigation corridors of 3 km each) enclosed between Iran to the north and Oman to the south.
At the moment, according to the most authoritative international newspapers there would be well 150 tankers stopped (among these ships there are also those carrying crude oil and liquefied natural gas) and two would have been hit by the attacks between the two countries. One of them even sank.
From this strait they pass approximately the 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 rise in the prices of these resourceswith 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 the Chinawhich could therefore suffer heavy shocks despite being an ally of Iran. With the great eastern nation there is also the Japanthe South Korea el’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, in fact, we depend on Qatar for gas. If the closure of the Strait of Hormuz were to continue, the price of gas at the TTF Amsterdam (the leading virtual wholesale market for natural gas trading in Europe) would risk tripling.
Riyadh and Abu Dhabi’s race for cover
To mitigate vulnerability related to constant geopolitical tensions near the Strait of Hormuz, Saudi Arabia and 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 itsoil highway“, i.e. 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 of the 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.
