What are maritime chokepoints? The eight straits that keep the world's energy moving

Most of the world's energy doesn't travel by pipeline or power line. It travels by ship — and nearly all of those ships funnel through a handful of narrow passages that geography refuses to widen. These are the maritime chokepoints, and when one closes, the effects reach petrol pumps and power stations on every continent within weeks.

The critical four

Strait of Hormuz. The narrowest point between Oman and Iran is just 33 km wide, and roughly 21 million barrels of oil pass through it every day — about a fifth of all petroleum traded globally, plus a significant share of the world's LNG from Qatar. There is no meaningful sea alternative. Any closure would trigger an immediate global energy crisis, which is why it sits at the top of every energy-security risk register.

Strait of Malacca. The lane between Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore is the artery connecting Middle East producers to Asian consumers — around 16 million barrels of oil per day, plus Australian LNG and coal heading to China, Japan and South Korea. Up to 100,000 vessels transit each year, making it the world's busiest shipping lane and the reason Singapore became Asia's energy-trading hub.

Suez Canal. Cutting 7,000 km off the Europe–Asia route, Suez carries roughly a tenth of global trade. Its fragility is no longer theoretical: the Ever Given grounding closed it in 2021, and Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping in 2023–24 cut transits by around 70%, forcing carriers onto the long route around Africa.

Bab-el-Mandeb. Suez only works if ships can reach it, and the southern gateway — 29 km wide, between Yemen and Djibouti — is where the 2023–24 Red Sea crisis actually bit. With many carriers refusing the passage, Suez-bound voyages diverted around the Cape of Good Hope, adding 10–14 days per trip.

The pressure valves and regional gates

• Cape of Good Hope — not a strait but the escape route. Geographically immune to Middle East conflict, it absorbed a 70%+ traffic surge during the Red Sea crisis, at the cost of longer voyages, more fuel, and higher freight rates worldwide.
• Panama Canal — the short cut for US Gulf Coast LNG heading to Asia. Its vulnerability is fresh water, not conflict: drought restrictions in 2023–24 cut daily transits and forced LNG carriers into long detours.
• Danish Straits — the exit from the Baltic, and the route most Russian seaborne oil now takes to reach world markets.
• Turkish Straits (Bosphorus) — the Black Sea's only outlet, carrying Russian and Kazakh crude through the middle of Istanbul, a city of 16 million.

Why this matters for the energy transition

A common assumption is that electrification ends chokepoint risk. It changes it. Wind turbines, solar panels, EV batteries and grid cables are built from copper, lithium, cobalt, nickel and rare earths — and those move by ship too, through the same straits. Chile's copper to China crosses the Pacific; the DRC's cobalt exits through African ports toward Asian refineries; Australia's lithium sails to Chinese converters through Malacca-adjacent lanes. The cargo changes; the geography doesn't.

On the Energy Tracer map, every chokepoint is plotted alongside the supply chains that depend on it — toggle them on and you can see exactly which oil fields, LNG terminals and mines route their output through each gap.

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