With the United States and Iran agreeing on the 14th (local time) to lift the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the choked global crude supply is expected to catch a breath. But in this war, Iran for the first time ever pulled out the "Hormuz blockade" as an actual bargaining chip and proved its power. It showed that blocking a single narrow sea lane could shake the global energy market. As a result, there is growing concern that whenever Iran needs leverage to pressure countries around the Gulf or adversaries, it could again attempt to blockade the Strait of Hormuz.
Reuters cited energy experts as saying, "The experience of the world's most important energy chokepoint being paralyzed for an extended period will almost certainly make shippers, buyers and producers much more cautious even after flows resume." The crude shipping market landscape after the lifting of the blockade is expected to look markedly different from before the transfer.
War risk insurance premiums charged to ships passing through Hormuz have surged since the outbreak of war. According to tallies by the Middle East outlet Khaleej Times, premiums that were around 0.25% of a vessel's value before the war jumped to 3%–8% last month. The insurance alone for a single large tanker to pass through the strait once reaches $3 million–$8 million (about 4.6 billion–12.1 billion won). The higher premiums and freight rates ultimately come back as a burden on consumer countries buying crude. Shipping companies warned that if conflict flares again in the Strait of Hormuz, situations like this time—when ships and crews were stranded indefinitely—could recur. Reuters said, "Shipping companies are trying to minimize the time they spend inside the Gulf."
Oil producers plan to continue using routes that bypass Hormuz even after the blockade. Saudi Arabia increased crude sent to the Red Sea port of Yanbu via a route that avoids Hormuz to as much as 4.5 million barrels a day. That is about 60% of total exports before the war, and the bypass volumes have more than tripled since the outbreak. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) also sharply increased export volumes through the port of Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, outside Hormuz. This pipeline runs 380 kilometers from inland oil fields to the port of Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman outside Hormuz. It can export up to 1.8 million barrels a day without traversing the Strait of Hormuz, serving in effect as the UAE's only breathing channel for crude exports during this war. The UAE is building a new pipeline aimed at operation in 2027 that can double Fujairah's export capacity from current levels.
Some energy market experts, noting these overlapping changes, said it will be difficult for Hormuz traffic to return to former levels even if transit normalizes. As shipping firms avoid transiting the Strait of Hormuz and producers lean on bypasses, post-reopening throughput is estimated to hover around 16 million barrels a day—roughly 20% below the peak of 20 million. That means about one-fifth from the peak disappears.
Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, spiked to $118 a barrel right after the war broke out, then fell below $84 as of the 15th as expectations grew for supply chains to restart. According to commodities analytics firm Kpler, roughly 60 million barrels of crude and refined products are currently floating in the Gulf, stuck on ships as exports were blocked by the strait's closure. Even when the blockade is lifted and closed routes reopen, it takes physical time for the backed-up volumes to reach the market.
Experts say it will take 60 to 90 days for the global crude supply chain to fully return to place, given sailing distances and bottlenecks. It takes three weeks just for trapped ships to depart in order and sail one-way to Asia while avoiding port congestion. Even if the blockade is fully lifted following a signing in Switzerland on the 19th, the market is unlikely to breathe easy immediately from that day. Tankers must exit first, followed by a multistage adjustment in which ships then crowd into the Middle East to haul away built-up inventories. Time is also needed for the roughly 11 million barrels a day of regional production halted during the conflict to come back.
On top of that, the Northern Hemisphere has entered summer, when fuel consumption is the highest of the year due to vacation travel and air-conditioning demand from heat waves. According to analysis by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), global crude inventories fell by an average of 5.3 million barrels a day from March to May. With energy stocks draining quickly, even late-arriving Middle East supply is likely to do little more than slow the pace of decline.
Through this war, Iran broke for the first time the decades-old taboo of blockading the Strait of Hormuz. For Iran, the strait is no longer just territorial waters or a trade route but an asymmetric lever to grip the world economy's lifeline against the West. In investment circles, the prevailing view is that it will be hard for international oil prices to return for the time being to the $60 range seen before the war, as a geopolitical risk premium that the strait could close again in a crisis overlaps with tangled logistics.
Goldman Sachs said in a report, "The risk of crude production being concentrated in one place, the Persian Gulf, has been priced into not only short-term contracts but also long-dated futures," adding, "Even if the strait reopens, oil prices will not immediately recover to prewar levels." This is interpreted to mean the crude market will, for some time, treat the once-exposed vulnerability of the Strait of Hormuz as a risk expense premium. The diagnosis is that even if the short-term threat of a supply shock disappears, the structural vulnerability revealed by the Iran war remains intact.