EXPLAINERIranian lawmaker says Tehran considering closing waterway, described as ‘world’s most important oil transit chokepoint’.Iran is considering closing the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian news agency IRINN has reported, citing key conservative lawmaker Esmail Kosari, as the conflict with Israel intensifies.
The move would send oil prices soaring and risk expanding the war. So what is the strategic waterway and why is it vital to global trade?
Hormuz is the only marine entryway into the Persian Gulf. It splits Iran on one side and Oman and the United Arab Emirates on the other, and it links the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea in the Indian Ocean.
According to the US Energy Information Administration, about 20 percent of global oil consumption flows through the strait, which the agency describes as the “world’s most important oil transit chokepoint”. At its narrowest point, it is 33km (21 miles) wide, but shipping lanes in the waterway are even narrower, making them vulnerable to attacks and threats of being shut down.
During the Iran-Iraq conflict between 1980 and 1988, which killed hundreds of thousands on both sides, both countries targeted commercial vessels in the Gulf in what became known as the Tanker War, but Hormuz was never completely closed. Advertisement
More recently, in 2019, four ships were attacked near the strait off the coast of Fujairah, UAE, amid heightened tensions between Iran and the United States during Donald Trump’s first presidency. Washington blamed Tehran for the incident, but Iran denied the allegations.
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