Critical geography and vulnerability in global trade routes

There are places on the planet that stand out not for their size, but for their ability to stop the world. The Strait of Hormuz is one of them. Barely 54 kilometers at its narrowest point, two navigable lanes just over three kilometers in each direction—and yet until a few weeks ago, close to a quarter of the oil transported by sea worldwide flowed through it.

The war in Iran has turned the strait into a zone of military control, where the passage of vessels no longer depends only on commercial routes or logistics contracts, but on political criteria. Traffic—normally around 130–140 ships a day—has fallen sharply, with hundreds of vessels held up or rerouted and thousands of seafarers stranded in the region.

The impact is not only quantitative. It is structural.

Because Hormuz is not just another passage: it is the main outlet channel for hydrocarbons from the Persian Gulf. In 2025, roughly 20 million barrels of oil per day—nearly 25% of global seaborne crude trade—crossed this corridor, along with close to 20% of global liquefied natural gas. Closing Hormuz, even partially, is equivalent to removing up to 20% of global oil supply from the market—a magnitude far greater than the major energy crises of the 20th century.

The result is immediate: surging prices, imported inflation, and supply chains under stress. In March 2026, the barrel has risen above $110 in a context of extreme volatility, with exceptional monthly increases. But what matters most is not the short‑term figure—it is the structural evidence this crisis leaves behind: global trade still depends on an extremely fragile network of geographic passages.

Other bottlenecks

Hormuz is not alone. It is simply the most visible—and now the most dramatic—example of a global logistics system that rests on a series of chokepoints. The Suez Canal, for example, carries around 12% of world trade. Its 2021 blockage by the Ever Given was a one‑off reminder; the current instability in the Red Sea, with attacks on vessels, is turning it into a persistent risk.

The Strait of Malacca, between Malaysia and Indonesia, moves close to 30% of global maritime trade and is critical for the energy supply of China, Japan, and South Korea. It is narrow, congested, and vulnerable to piracy or regional tensions. The Panama Canal, meanwhile, handles roughly 5% of global trade, but its fragility is less geopolitical than climatic: recent drought cut the number of daily transits by more than 30%, particularly affecting flows between Asia and the U.S. East Coast.

Even less publicized points, such as the Bab el‑Mandeb Strait—key to connecting the Indian Ocean with the Mediterranean—or the Bosporus, play outsized roles relative to their size. The conclusion is clear: global trade is not a distributed network, but a chain of mandatory passages.

Consequences

When one of these points is blocked, the system does not collapse immediately. It deforms. Routes get longer. Costs surge. Uncertainty becomes another logistics factor. In the case of Hormuz, many carriers have opted to suspend operations or reroute voyages around Africa, adding 10 to 15 days of transit and significantly increasing fuel costs.

At the same time, war‑risk insurance premiums have multiplied, and in some cases the problem is not the cost but the availability of coverage. Gulf ports, highly dependent on the strait, have seen activity slow down or come to a standstill. And seemingly distant sectors—such as fertilizers, chemicals, or even semiconductors—are affected by disruptions to critical raw materials.

According to UNCTAD, this kind of disruption in maritime chokepoints acts as a risk multiplier, transmitting shocks simultaneously to energy, logistics, and financial markets.

In this context, the question is not how to avoid risk—because it cannot be avoided—but how to manage it.

What can freight forwarders like Transped do?

Freight forwarders play a strategic role here, beyond mere intermediation.

The first tool is route diversification. It is not just about reacting to a crisis, but about designing logistics chains that include alternatives from the outset. This implies working with multiple corridors, ports, and transport modes, even when the primary option is more efficient under normal conditions.

The second is anticipation through logistics intelligence. Logistics will no longer compete only on efficiency, but on the ability to anticipate. At Transped, we are aligning our operations toward that model, strengthening environmental reading and proactive decision‑making as the backbone of our value proposition. Today we have route‑tracking platforms that improve visibility, and progressively we will add new layers of intelligence to our systems to move further in that direction.

The third is contractual and financial risk management. Force‑majeure clauses, flexibility in transport contracts, and insurance coverage adapted to war or instability scenarios are already essential elements.

This is compounded by the need for collaboration. In contexts like the current one, coordination among carriers, insurers, port authorities, and end customers is key to maintaining a certain level of operability.

Finally, a deeper shift emerges: partial relocalization of supply chains. So‑called nearshoring or “friendshoring” does not eliminate risks, but it reduces exposure to certain chokepoints.

For decades, globalization operated on an implicit premise: that maritime transport was a stable, almost invisible system. The Hormuz crisis breaks that illusion. Suddenly, the world’s logistics map—an array of straits, canals, and critical passages—becomes visible. And with it, the awareness that global trade depends not only on efficiency, but on geography and politics.

Perhaps the real lesson of this crisis is not short‑term, but structural. Because Hormuz is not an exception. It is simply the most recent reminder that the world moves—literally—through places where everything can stop.

Sources and further reading: