The chokepoint economy

Since 28 February — when the US and Israel opened an air war on Iran and killed Ali Khamenei — the Strait of Hormuz has been effectively shut. Iran declared it closed on 4 March, mined it, boarded ships, forbade passage. Roughly 25% of the world's seaborne oil and 20% of its LNG used to pass through that one narrow throat of water. Now traffic is at a standstill and the world is improvising new arteries — overland, around, rerouted — at cost and at risk. The processing is strangely muted for a ...