If oil and gas are the blood running through the veins of global industry, heating and transport, the Strait of Hormuz is its jugular vein.
In just 33 kilometres wide, a major part of the planet’s economic destiny is concentrated. The closure of the Strait, declared on 28 February 2026, is not an accident of the road: it is an act of economic warfare that lays bare the fragility of the West and, in particular, of Europe.

For a continent that has just laboriously sought a new energy identity, Hormuz today represents the ultimate ‘breaking point’.

An obligatory passage

The figures describing Hormuz admit of no reply. We are not talking about one trade route among many, but the umbilical cord of the world’s energy giants. Around 25 per cent of the global oil supply and 20 per cent of LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) passes through this arm of the sea every day.

The producers’ dependence is almost total, a statistic that turns the strait into a geographical prison:

• Qatar: 100% of gas and crude oil exports by sea.
• Kuwait: 100 per cent.
• Iran: 100 per cent.
• Iraq: 97%.
• Saudi Arabia: 90%.
• United Arab Emirates: 66%.

The alternatives are, as things stand, a logistical mirage. The overland infrastructure bypassing the strait (mainly in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates) has a combined capacity of about 6 million barrels per day, less than 1/3 of the 21 million that usually ply the waters of the Gulf.
Without Hormuz, world energy is literally ‘locked in’.

The logistical shock: the invisible insurance wall

If the physical closure of the Strait is the visible wound, the blockade of insurance markets is its internal bleeding. In maritime law, a ship is not just a means of transport, but a complex financial entity that can only sail if it is protected by a network of guarantees.

As the crisis deepened, the large insurance syndicates, led by Lloyd’s of London, recalculated war risk premiums on an hourly basis. In just three days, premiums jumped by 60%.
Many reinsurance companies invoked Force Majeure clauses, withdrawing cover altogether.

Without ‘H&M’(Hull and Machinery) and ‘P&I’(Protection and Indemnity) insurance, an oil tanker is legally prevented from sailing. Many shipping companies have already instructed their fleets to drop anchor outside risk zones.
The result? Even oil that has already been loaded and is ready to go has remained stationary.

It is not just geography that blocks oil flows: it is the bureaucracy of financial risk.

The freight explosion and the pincer effect

The immediate impact of this chaos was on maritime freight rates, i.e. the cost of chartering ships.
Within 72 hours, rates for routes from the Gulf to Mediterranean ports tripled.

Exacerbating the situation is what analysts call the ‘pincer effect’. With the Strait of Hormuz sealed off, attention has shifted to Bab el-Mandeb, the gateway to the Red Sea. The chronic instability in this area, however, prevents the few ships loaded outside the Gulf from sailing smoothly to the Suez Canal.

The only alternative is the circumnavigation of Africa via the Cape of Good Hope. This route adds 15-20 days of sailing, burning thousands of tonnes of extra fuel and drastically reducing the effective availability of ships on the global market.

These costs do not evaporate: they drain instantly down the value chain, inflating prices at the pump and industrial bills in the Eurozone, threatening a new inflationary wave that the ECB does not have the tools to counter without stifling growth.

Tehran’s gamble: economic suicide?

In this chess game, Iran holds the heaviest but also the most fragile piece. How can Tehran afford to keep the Strait closed if 100% of its oil passes through there?

The answer lies in a brutal bet: Iran bets on its resilience to poverty (fortified by years of sanctions) against the fragility of Western democratic markets. However, it is a time-bound bet.
By blockading Hormuz, Iran is also throttling China, its main buyer and political protector.

Although Beijing has amassed record stockpiles (a pre-emptive ‘slap in the face’ to the West after the Venezuelan chaos) and although it can count on 200 million barrels of sanctioned Iranian oil currently floating around with no destination, it will not tolerate a blockade that jeopardises its industrial stability for long.
Iran has pointed a gun at the world’s temple, but the trigger is also connected to its own economy.

The Russian mirage and the illusion of a ‘return to the past’

As TTF gas prices on the Amsterdam market soar again, the populist temptation resurfaces in Europe: ‘Let’s go back to buying from Moscow’.
This is a technically and politically lying narrative.

Firstly, the infrastructure is compromised or redirected: Russia has already shifted its energy centre of gravity towards Beijing and New Delhi.
Secondly, there is the price trap. Even if Europe decided to lift sanctions out of desperation, Russian hydrocarbons would certainly not be given away.
Moscow would sell at current market prices, which are drugged precisely by the Hormuz crisis.

If today China and India can obtain Russian hydrocarbons at very generous discounts, it is precisely thanks to Western sanctions: if these were removed, the discount would also vanish.
Europe, therefore, would start financing the Kremlin again without getting any savings on its bill, suffering an economic extortion masquerading as a bailout.

European sovereignty will have to wait

The Hormuz crisis of 2026 marks the end of the illusion of a ‘painless’ energy transition. Europe has discovered that changing supplier does not mean changing destiny if routes remain hostage to geographical bottlenecks.

Unless we are able to secure our routes or accelerate towards true autonomy that does not depend on foreign ‘jugular veins’ beyond our control, we will forever remain a paying spectator in a world ruled by force and geography.