Post #5253

⛽️ Strait of Hormuz: Global Oil on Pause, War Risk on Play The shooting war over Iran just turned into an economic chokehold. After U.S. and Israeli strikes, oil and gas tankers are slowing, stopping, or turning around at the Strait of Hormuz, while Iranian media declares the waterway “practically closed” and the Revolutionary Guard warns that transit is unsafe. Tankers report hearing radio messages claiming to be from the Iranian navy banning passage; some ships have U‑turned or aborted transits, and Japan’s Nippon Yusen has told its fleet to avoid Hormuz altogether, while Greece has told its vast merchant fleet to reassess and be ready to operate without reliable GPS because of jamming and spoofing risks. Vessel‑tracking data shows a growing flotilla of idle crude and LNG carriers piling up on both sides of the strait and in the Gulf of Oman, including ships loaded with Saudi, Iraqi, Emirati and Qatari cargoes now essentially parked until someone decides it’s safe to move again. Formally, neither Washington nor Tehran has announced a closure, but in shipping terms the effect is already there: U.S. maritime authorities are warning vessels to stay well clear of U.S. military assets, insurers are reassessing, and owners are eyeing war‑risk clauses that let them cancel voyages into a live conflict zone. A fifth of the world’s seaborne oil and a similar share of liquefied natural gas normally pass through Hormuz; even a brief disruption means higher freight rates and a war premium baked into every barrel. Futures markets are shut for the weekend, but early price signals are already pointing to double‑digit percentage jumps for West Texas Intermediate when trading reopens, and traders say the real question is political, not technical: does Iran keep using Hormuz as a pressure lever, do the U.S. and Gulf states risk escorting traffic through a missile environment, and how long shipowners will tolerate leaving millions of barrels’ worth of crude sitting in the Gulf of Oman while presidents in Washington and Tehran trade threats. The battlefield is missiles and airbases; the collateral is every consumer whose life depends on oil that used to slip quietly through a strait that has just become the world’s most expensive traffic jam. #Iran#StraitOfHormuz#oil#tankers#shipping#Trump#war#energy 📱American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸