{"id":203793,"date":"2026-03-12T01:12:57","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T01:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/why-its-so-hard-to-get-oil-through-the-strait-of-hormuz-right-now-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T01:12:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T01:12:57","slug":"why-its-so-hard-to-get-oil-through-the-strait-of-hormuz-right-now-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/why-its-so-hard-to-get-oil-through-the-strait-of-hormuz-right-now-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Why it's so hard to get oil through the Strait of Hormuz right now – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Three ships were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz<\/a> on Wednesday, a British navy-run monitoring service said, the latest in a flurry of attacks on the vital oil choke point.
As Iran targets ships with missiles and drones, even attempting to navigate the strategic waterway<\/a> is currently unthinkable \u2014 with alarming ramifications for the global economy.<\/a>
“We will not allow even one liter of oil to pass through the Strait of Hormuz for the benefit of the U.S. and its allies,” an Iranian armed forces spokesperson said on Wednesday, according to Iranian state broadcaster IRIB.
“Get ready for oil to be $200 a barrel,” Iran warned, while the International Energy Agency said that 400 million barrels of oil would be released<\/a> from emergency reserves in an effort to stabilize the market.
President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the United States had destroyed 28 ships capable of laying mines, amid fears Tehran could deploy hundreds of mines to effectively booby-trap the shipping lane, all but guaranteeing longer-term disruption.
Meanwhile, captains and shipowners must also grapple with a web of legal, insurance and brokerage concerns, meaning most have little choice but to try and wait out the crisis.
\u201cThe constraint is not just physical danger \u2014 it\u2019s that the financial infrastructure that enables global shipping is temporarily breaking down,\u201d said Claire Jungman, director of maritime risk and intelligence at Vortexa, a London-based company that tracks energy and cargo shipping globally.
Just 30-miles wide, the strait is challenging to pass through even in peacetime, with a narrow shipping lane overlooked by a large stretch of Iran\u2019s coastline, giving the country plenty of opportunity to attack ships.
Like the Suez Canal blockage in 2021<\/a>, or the Baltimore\u2019s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in 2024<\/a>, the conflict has exposed the otherwise quiet machinery of global trade and its vital, yet fragile, role in the daily life of billions.
Typically, one-fifth of the world\u2019s oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, which is the only viable route for sea exports from several Gulf states. Traffic is down 90% amid the crisis, with hundreds of ships at anchor off the coasts of major oil exporters such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq, according to the tracking website Marine Traffic<\/a>.
Global oil prices have sharply risen, though they have fallen slightly from highs seen last week<\/a>, threatening wider economic instability across the world. Trump has threatened to hit Iran \u201c20 times harder\u201d if it disrupts this vital artery in the world\u2019s fuel supply.
Of the handful of tankers that have braved the crossing, around half belong to a so-called shadow fleet \u2014 meaning they are carrying sanctioned oil from Iran, Russia<\/a> or Venezuela<\/a> \u2014 according to Lloyd\u2019s List Intelligence, another analytics firm based in London. These crossings include suspected \u201cdark transits,\u201d where ships switch off their tracking systems to effectively disappear, Lloyd\u2019s said in an analysis on Monday.
On Wednesday, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Organization, a monitoring service run by the British navy, reported that a \u201ccargo vessel has been hit by an unknown projectile\u201d 11 nautical miles north of Oman. That caused a fire and the crew was evacuating the ship, it said.
Another bulk carrier 50 nautical miles northwest of Dubai was hit by a projectile, with the crew reported \u201csafe and well,\u201d and a container vessel, whose location was not given, was assessing damage after being struck, it said.
One of the ships struck was flying the Liberian flag, Iranian state media reported, and Thailand\u2019s transport ministry said another was a Thai vessel.
In all, 13 ships have been hit in the strait since U.S. and Israeli strikes sparked the war Feb. 28, according to the UKMTO.
It\u2019s not just missiles these ships have to worry about, but also the possibility that Iran deploys its fleet of mine-laying vessels to render the crossing impassable. \u201cThere remains no confirmed evidence of mine deployment or detonation in regional shipping lanes,\u201d Britain\u2019s Joint Maritime Information Center said on Wednesday, though it said one attack showed evidence of a “severe explosive event at or near the waterline.”
Though it\u2019s unclear how many mines Iran has laid or has the capability of laying, the threat could see disruption, potentially lasting long after the conflict ends.
The threats to oil tankers are also an \u201cecological ticking time bomb,\u201d according to Greenpeace Germany, which simulated a potential oil spill and found such an event could threaten sensitive ecosystems including coral reefs, mangrove forests and seagrass meadows.
Even in peacetime, the world of shipping is a bureaucratic labyrinth of captains, owners, brokers and insurers. When war breaks out, many insurers trigger what are known as standard war-risk cancellation clauses, according to Jungman at Vortexa.
These clauses allow insurers to \u201cwithdraw coverage on short notice when an area becomes an active conflict zone,\u201d she said. And \u201cwithout insurance, most commercial ships simply cannot sail.\u201d
Some companies do provide insurance, \u201cbut the pricing and conditions can be extremely restrictive,\u201d Jungman added. In some cases, premiums have risen by as much as 1,000%, according to Reuters.
For any voyage, the ship\u2019s owners have to green-light the route first. They insure the ship \u2014 typically at 0.25% of the value of the vessel plus its cargo. The war has seen premiums spike to 3% of the ship\u2019s total value, which can range between $200 million and $300 million, according to the American brokerage Jefferies.
One firm providing cover is the Illinois-based brokerage Gallagher, which says it is still offering cover through the marketplace giant Lloyd\u2019s of London.
Gallagher is \u201cvery much open for business,\u201d its marine divisional director, Angus Blayney, said in an emailed statement. \u201cGiven the challenging maritime security environment, rates have increased from levels that owners and charterers will be used to,\u201d Blayney added, without providing specific figures.
\u201cSome owners are willing to risk it and they are getting paid huge amounts of money,\u201d said Tim Huxley, director of Mandarin Shipping in Hong Kong. \u201cIf you\u2019re willing to do it, you might get paid half a million of U.S. dollars a day. There\u2019s obviously a profound risk in it.\u201d
Both the U.S. and France have suggested they could escort vessels. But doing that for \u201cevery commercial vessel moving through the strait would require a very large and sustained naval presence,\u201d Jungman said, and they would not be immune to mines and drones.
Even if shipowners green-light the route and manage to get insurance, the crews \u201chave the right to refuse to go into a war zone,\u201d said Capt. Pradeep Chawla, a veteran mariner and an expert in maritime safety based in Hong Kong.
\u201cSeafarers have been caught in the middle\u201d of this conflict, Chawla said. \u201cIt\u2019s in times like these that one realizes, without seafarers, countries would not get their oil or food.\u201d
Alexander Smith is a senior reporter for\u00a0NBC News Digital based in London.
Mithil Aggarwal is a Hong Kong-based reporter\/producer for NBC News.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeThree ships were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, a British navy-run monitoring service said, the latest in a flurry of attacks on the vital oil choke point.As Iran targets ships with missiles and drones, even attempting to navigate the strategic waterway is currently unthinkable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":203794,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-203793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}