Oil, LNG Supply at Risk as Ships Avoid Strait of Hormuz

Ali Imran Chattha Nazrana Times 
 

The Persian Gulf, one of the most trafficked bodies of water on earth is a ghost. The Strait of Hormuz, which normally processes 138 ships every single day, is down to two or three transits (all approved by Iran). The only vessels still moving are shadow fleet ships running dark, AIS switched off, no insurance, no rules. Every Western tanker, their LNG carriers, every bulk cargo vessel has stopped. Anchored and waiting. Going nowhere.
Trump said the strait would be open “very soon.” He said it on Day 5. He said it on Day 10. He’s still saying it on Day 16. Meanwhile his own Energy Secretary quietly told CNN “worst case, that’s a few weeks.” 

Iran’s new Supreme Leader said on March 12 in plain language, “the Strait of Hormuz must remain closed.” The IRGC commander mocked Trump’s Epstein coalition request for China and Russia to help by pointing out the strait “has not yet been militarily closed — it is merely under control.” They don’t even need to formally close it. The threat alone is enough.
What’s actually stopped moving? A fifth of the world’s oil. Thirty percent of global LNG. One third of the world’s fertilizer supply through a strait that’s been shut for two weeks as spring planting season begins and a quarter of American farmers haven’t bought fertilizer yet. Maersk stopped. CMA CGM stopped. Hapag-Lloyd stopped. COSCO stopped. 
The Red Sea is backed up too... tankers and bulk carriers queuing through the Gulf of Aden because the Houthis just resumed attacks, forcing the Cape of Good Hope reroute that adds two weeks to every transit. 3,200 ships or four percent of global tonnage are sitting idle in the Gulf region right now. Port storage is filling up. Floating storage contracts are being signed. The global supply chain is seizing.
Brent above $100. US gas at $3.63 and climbing. Urea up 77%. Food inflation baked in for months. And Trump is on Truth Social asking China in humiliating fashion to send warships to a strait Iran hasn’t even formally declared closed — because the threat of getting hit is enough to keep every insurer, every captain and every shipowner on the dock.
This is what a war of choice looks like from the outside. One man’s 4l year obsession. The whole world pays the bill.