🔶 Is the Strait of Hormuz the only route for oil to leave the Persian Gulf?

🔻 A report by Danial Amri

As the U.S.-Iran war flares up again, commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has once again dropped sharply; although it has not yet reached zero. The latest data show that over a four-day period, 33 ships passed through the strait, while in the previous comparable period this figure was 50. This reduction has brought an old question back into focus: can energy exporters in the Persian Gulf bypass the world’s most important oil chokepoint?

The short answer is: to some extent, but not enough to make a Hormuz crisis ineffective.

Saudi Arabia has shown that existing infrastructure can divert a significant volume of oil away from Hormuz and deliver it to ports on the Red Sea. However, the United Arab Emirates, despite having ports and a pipeline system designed precisely for such a scenario, has achieved far more limited success. Other proposed routes are also either still on paper or require years of time and billions of dollars in investment.

The current war has clarified an important reality: alternative routes can reduce the shock caused by disruption at Hormuz, but they cannot eliminate the world’s dependence on this strait.