For decades, the Strait of Hormuz has stood as the world’s most strategically vital oil chokepoint, a narrow waterway that carries roughly 17 million barrels per day of crude, condensate, and refined products from the Persian Gulf to global markets. That volume represents a significant share of the world’s seaborne oil trade and a substantial portion of liquefied natural gas shipments.
When Iranian blockades triggered what became known as the Strait of Hormuz crisis during the 2026 Iran War, the waterway was effectively closed for an extended period for the first time in modern history. That closure tested the world’s energy backup systems and revealed a stark reality: the alternatives exist, but they are partial patches on a much larger problem.
The Strait of Hormuz: A Chokepoint With No True Replacement
The Strait of Hormuz provides the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, making it the sole maritime route for several Gulf countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Iraq. Without it, those nations cannot ship their oil and gas by sea.
Before the 2026 Iran War, the strait had never been shut for an extended time during Middle East conflicts, though Iran had occasionally threatened closure and undertaken preparations to mine the waterway. The crisis changed that dynamic, forcing energy planners to confront the limited nature of overland alternatives. Even a temporary disruption draws global attention because energy prices can spike and supply shortages ripple through economies.
The waterway has shaped energy security policy for decades, and its closure tests the limits of global spare production capacity and alternative shipping routes.
Three Pipelines Offer Limited Bypass Capabilities
The most important alternative is Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline, known as Petroline. Completed in 1981, it runs 745 miles from Abqaiq to the Red Sea port of Yanbu.
Its theoretical capacity is 5 million barrels per day, but in practice it carried only about 2 million barrels per day in 2023. That gap between capacity and actual use is critical: like a highway built for five lanes of traffic currently using only two, the pipeline requires maintenance before it can ramp up flow. If a crisis hits, Saudi Arabia could push more crude through Petroline, but not the full 5 million barrels immediately.
The United Arab Emirates operates its own bypass pipeline, the Habshan-Fujairah line, which has been operational since 2012. It runs 1,200 miles from Habshan to Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, completely sidestepping the Strait of Hormuz.
Its capacity is 1.5 million barrels per day, a meaningful but still limited number. Iraq’s Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, which runs to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, has a capacity of 1.6 million barrels per day. However, it has been disrupted by conflict, spending more time shut down than running over the past decade due to political disputes and security issues in northern Iraq and Turkey.
In a Hormuz closure scenario, Iraq would struggle to use this route reliably.
The Supply Gap: 9 Million Barrels Per Day of Shortfall
Adding the theoretical maximums of these three pipelines — Petroline, Habshan-Fujairah, and Kirkuk-Ceyhan — yields about 8.1 million barrels per day of capacity. But actual usage is lower due to maintenance issues and political problems. The pipelines are not running at full throttle and cannot be expected to suddenly start.
Against roughly 17 million barrels per day that normally transit the Strait of Hormuz, even if every pipeline ran at full capacity, the total would fall short by about 9 million barrels per day. Global spare oil production capacity was about 3 to 4 million barrels per day in 2023, concentrated mostly in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
That spare capacity could help, but it is not sitting in a pipeline ready to flow and would take time to bring wells online. A prolonged closure would also push more oil toward the Suez Canal and the SUMED pipeline, which together handle about 9 percent of global oil trade. But those routes have their own limits: the Suez Canal can handle only so many tankers, and the SUMED pipeline has fixed capacity.
They cannot simply absorb the missing 17 million barrels per day. In a worst-case scenario, the world would face supply shortages.
What to watch next is whether Saudi Arabia and the UAE invest in boosting their pipeline throughput capacity and whether Iraq can stabilize its Kirkuk-Ceyhan route. For now, the East-West Pipeline remains the single most important backup, but it is a backup with limits.
