The Strait of Hormuz, where Iran, hit by attacks from Israel and the United States, declared "no ship passage," is a strategic chokepoint in the Middle East and a global oil shipping lane.
Oman lies to the south and Iran to the north, with the Persian Gulf to the west and, through the Gulf of Oman to the southeast, consolidation to the Arabian Sea beyond.
At its narrowest point, the Strait of Hormuz is only 33 kilometers wide, and the width of the shipping lanes at this point is just 3 kilometers in each direction. Yet about one-fifth of the world's oil consumption is transported through the strait.
Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, and Iraq, all members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), export most of their crude oil through the strait, mainly to Asian countries.
In recent decades, tensions over oil exports and transportation have risen whenever war has broken out in the Middle East. In 1973, Arab oil producers led by Saudi Arabia imposed an oil embargo on Western countries supporting Israel after war erupted between Israel and Egypt.
During the Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988, both sides tried to disrupt each other's oil exports, a phase commonly called the "Tanker War."
In January 2012, Iran threatened to blockade the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for U.S. and European sanctions. In May 2019, four ships, including two Saudi tankers, were attacked off the UAE coast outside the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran seized ships in or near the Strait of Hormuz twice in 2023 and once in 2024. Some of these seizures were carried out as retaliation for U.S. seizures of tankers linked to Iran.
In June last year, immediately after Iran's nuclear facilities were struck in an air raid, Iran's parliament voted to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, but the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), which had final authority on implementation, did not carry it out.
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) estimates that as of 2019 Iran possessed more than 5,000 naval mines and could deploy them quickly with the help of small fast boats.