Blog
Field notes on the strait.
Editorial analysis from the Straits desk. Each piece is dated, stays online unedited, and where applicable embeds the same live data the front page does.
8 May 2026
Explainer
What the Joint War Committee actually does
Lloyd’s JWC is the most-cited and least-understood institution in the chokepoint trade. It sets the war-risk pricing geography. It is not a regulator and it is not a forecast.
7 min
7 May 2026
Analysis
Why all nine carriers move together
The sequence in which container lines suspend Hormuz transits looks coordinated. It isn’t. They’re reading the same insurance pricing and the same security advisories.
6 min
7 May 2026
Analysis
The Cape route’s hidden cost
Fourteen extra days per leg is the visible number. Bunker, tanker-supply scarcity, compounding insurance, and inventory finance are the load-bearing costs that actually move spot rates.
7 min
7 May 2026
Briefing
What “effectively closed” actually means
A strait can be navigable on paper and uneconomic in practice. Three definitions of closure, the market mechanism that drives the second one, and the thresholds that separate them.
7 min
7 May 2026
Analysis
The SPR is smaller than you think
The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the largest in the world. The math against a Hormuz closure says it covers half of the gap, for two months. Reserves buy time, not substitution.
7 min
7 May 2026
Analysis
When the prediction markets disagree
Two prediction markets can price the same Hormuz risk differently; the spread between venues is sometimes a clearer signal than either price alone.
6 min
7 May 2026
Analysis
What Brent actually prices in
The headline crude price is the cleanest single number for a Hormuz disruption. It is also a misleadingly simple summary of a market pricing four distinct risks at once.
6 min
7 May 2026
Field note
Why AIS goes dark, and why we don’t always know why
A silent tanker can mean a broken antenna, a spoofed position, deliberate evasion, or a vessel that just sailed out of the bbox. The filter exists to separate the four, badly.
7 min
7 May 2026
Analysis
The shadow fleet, quietly expanding
Sanctioned tankers keep sailing. The fleet that carries the cargoes those sanctions were supposed to stop has roughly doubled since 2022. Hormuz is one of its primary corridors.
6 min
2 May 2026
Analysis
The ceasefire that keeps collapsing
Each cycle takes the insurance multiple a little lower, then a little higher again. The market is reading the operational reality, not the political headlines.
5 min
29 Apr 2026
Analysis
Why LNG is the crisis no one is pricing in
A quarter of seaborne LNG transits Hormuz, almost all of it Qatari. Substitution is harder than the headline numbers suggest, and the buyers most exposed are not the buyers most discussed.
6 min
25 Apr 2026
Field note
The mine threat outlasts any deal
Naval mines are cheap to lay and expensive to clear. Insurance multiples reflect the operational reality, not the political timeline, and the gap between them is structural.
5 min
22 Apr 2026
Ranking
Countries most dependent on Hormuz oil
The popular framing of Hormuz dependency is misleading. Volume buys headlines; share of imports is what determines the depth of a crisis.
5 min
18 Apr 2026
Briefing
Inside the Northwood coalition
A guide to the overlapping naval coalitions protecting Hormuz commerce: NAVCENT, CMF, IMSC, EMASoH, and the Commonwealth-aligned Northwood framing. Each has a different mandate.
6 min
15 Apr 2026
Comparison
Hormuz vs Suez: the chokepoints compared
Two maritime chokepoints, two different crises. One carries the world's oil; the other its manufactured goods. The shock shape, the reroute geometry, and the recovery curve all diverge.
6 min
9 Apr 2026
Briefing
What happens if the Strait of Hormuz is blocked
A 33-kilometre passage carrying a fifth of the world's seaborne oil. The price shock, the freight shock, the LNG shock, and the limits of every workaround.
6 min