What is the future of the Strait of Hormuz?

Related Articles

What did America gain from a war that destroyed its bases and failed to achieve its objectives?

6 minutes ago

It is well known that the Strait of Hormuz is not merely a commercial and oil shipping route; it also serves as another type of passage. What, then, is that other passage?

2 days ago

How long will the calm between the US and Iran last? Should we expect a major war?

1 week ago

What is the future of the Strait of Hormuz? Haydari Nazar

24

The future of the Strait of Hormuz will not be one of “permanent closure,” nor will it quickly return to the situation that existed before the 2026 crisis. The most likely scenario is a prolonged period of intermittent navigation, mutual deterrence, higher insurance and shipping costs, and efforts by Gulf and Asian countries to reduce their dependence on it.
The reason is that what happened in 2026 changed something important: the risk to Hormuz is no longer merely a theoretical possibility. The International Maritime Organization stated that the situation was so dangerous that, in June, it said safe passage could not be considered available in the absence of credible security guarantees, while dozens of attacks on maritime shipping had been recorded since the beginning of the crisis.

I expect five main trends:
1. Hormuz will remain open most of the time, but not necessarily safe.
This is an important point. A complete closure would be extremely costly for all parties, including Iran and the Gulf states. Therefore, I believe the most likely scenario is the use of threats to block, restrict, or impose conditions on navigation as a means of exerting pressure, rather than permanent closure.

2. Hormuz will become a more important strategic card for Iran.
The real value of the Strait lies not only in the ability to close it, but also in the ability of any party to make shipping companies ask themselves: Is crossing the Strait worth the risk?
Simply increasing the level of risk can lead to:

Higher maritime insurance costs.
Changes in shipping routes.
Delays in shipments.
Higher oil and gas prices.
Some shipping companies temporarily withdrawing from the region.
And this can happen even without a formal legal or military closure of the Strait.

3. The Gulf states will accelerate the development of alternatives.
This has already begun. Iraq, for example, is exploring alternative routes for exporting oil away from Hormuz, while there is growing interest in pipelines, ports, and overland routes.

But there is an important point here: there are no alternatives capable of completely replacing Hormuz quickly. Therefore, its importance will remain substantial for years to come.

4. China will be one of the countries with the greatest influence over the Strait’s future.
China depends heavily on energy coming from the Gulf and therefore has a major interest in preventing Hormuz from becoming an open battlefield.

This leads me to expect Beijing to push for arrangements that guarantee the continuation of navigation and perhaps become more diplomatically and security-wise involved in the Gulf in the coming years.

5. The world will begin treating Hormuz as a “strategic vulnerability,” rather than merely a maritime passage.

This is similar to what happened in the Red Sea after attacks on ships: companies do not always wait for a catastrophe to occur before changing their behavior; a prolonged increase in risk can be enough for them to reassess their calculations.

But there is a more dangerous scenario.
If direct military escalation between Iran and the United States resumes, we could see an actual or near-total temporary closure.

The consequences would be significant. During the 2026 crisis, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated that disruptions in Hormuz resulted in millions of barrels per day of Gulf production being shut in, before revising its projections after maritime traffic improved and flows resumed.
Therefore, I do not believe that the United States, China, Europe, or the Gulf states want to repeat the scenario of a prolonged closure.

My overall assessment
If I were to assign estimated—not statistical—probabilities for the next few years:
Scenario
My estimate
Continued navigation with intermittent tensions and threats
50%
New security arrangements that make Hormuz more stable
25%
Temporary closure/disruption due to a new war
20%
Long-term closure
5%
What matters most to me is that the future question will not be “Can Iran close Hormuz?” but rather “To what extent can Iran make passage through Hormuz costly and risky without itself having to bear the cost of a full-scale war?”
That is a completely different equation.

It is also noteworthy that the International Maritime Organization itself confirmed in July that freedom of transit through international straits should not be threatened, obstructed, or suspended. This means that Hormuz has already become an international issue that goes beyond merely the Iranian-American dispute.