Chokepoints and Hormuz threats
Commentators connected threats around the Strait of Hormuz to wider concerns about control over chokepoints and critical materials like rare earths. (x.com) The thread linked maritime security risks with economic leverage in strategic supply chains. (x.com)
A chokepoint is a narrow route that carries outsized trade, and the Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s biggest: about 20 million barrels a day of oil and oil products moved through it in 2025. (iea.org) The International Energy Agency said the strait handled roughly one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas flows, while the U.S. Energy Information Administration said about 20% of global liquefied natural gas trade crossed Hormuz in 2024, mostly from Qatar. (iea.org) (eia.gov) The waterway is physically tight: at its narrowest point it is 29 nautical miles wide, with two-mile shipping lanes for inbound and outbound traffic and a two-mile buffer zone. (iea.org) That geometry turns threats into market risk quickly. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center posted an attack warning on March 11, 2026, after a reported incident 11 nautical miles north of Oman in the Strait of Hormuz, and it told vessels to transit with caution. (ukmto.org) The same logic applies on land to minerals. The International Energy Agency said in 2025 that China was the leading refiner for 19 of 20 strategic minerals, with an average market share of 70%, making processing capacity a different kind of chokepoint. (iea.org) Rare earths are a clear example because the supply chain has stages: mining the ore, refining the material, and then turning it into permanent magnets used in electric vehicles, wind turbines, and electronics. The International Energy Agency’s latest rare earth analysis said those steps remain highly concentrated geographically. (iea.org) Shipping disruptions elsewhere have already shown how traffic reroutes when one passage becomes dangerous. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said oil flows through the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint fell by more than 50% in the first eight months of 2024, and Saudi Arabia shifted more crude onto its East-West pipeline to avoid Red Sea risk. (eia.gov 1) (eia.gov 2) Hormuz has fewer easy workarounds than headlines sometimes suggest. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said crude and condensate volumes moving through the strait fell by 1.6 million barrels a day between 2022 and 2024, but bypass pipelines in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates replaced only part of that traffic. (eia.gov) That is why analysts pair tanker routes with mineral processing in the same conversation: one shock can come from ships that cannot pass, and another can come from materials that cannot be refined. In both cases, the leverage comes from concentration at a narrow point in the chain. (eia.gov) (iea.org)
