Pentagon officials told Congress that mine-clearing operations in the Strait of Hormuz could take up to six months to complete, according to defense.gov. That timeline matters: the Strait carries roughly 20–21% of all oil consumed globally and significant amounts of liquefied natural gas, mostly heading to East Asia. If the work takes that long, the world's most important energy bottleneck stays functionally broken well into late 2026.

Ship traffic through the waterway has dropped sharply despite diplomatic talks happening on multiple fronts, per Reuters. Mine clearance is now the main limit on when traffic returns to normal. This is no longer a political standoff—it's an engineering problem with a concrete timeline.

How Mine Clearing Actually Works

Mine-clearing in narrow, crowded straits is slow work. It requires sonar survey ships, remotely operated underwater robots, and sometimes trained divers—all working in dangerous conditions. The Strait's geography makes it harder: it is roughly 33 kilometres wide at its narrowest, but the actual shipping lanes are much tighter. The shallow, murky waters of the Persian Gulf degrade sonar performance. Six months is a realistic estimate, not an overestimate dressed up as caution. The operators are up against real, physical constraints.

The International Chamber of Commerce's Commercial Crime Services has recorded a spike in piracy and armed robbery incidents in the wider region alongside the main disruption. This adds another layer of risk: shipping companies have to reroute ships and renegotiate insurance. War risk premiums—extra charges to cover the cost of insuring ships in dangerous zones—have spiked sharply. Some insurers have stopped offering coverage entirely for certain types of ships on certain routes.

The US State Department confirmed it has taken action in response to Iranian activities affecting the Strait, though exactly what those actions are remains unclear. Separately, Reuters reported that China has said it will protect Chinese ships passing through the waterway. That matters: China buys more Gulf crude than any other country, and Chinese-owned or Chinese-crewed oil tankers carry a meaningful share of the traffic through Hormuz. Whether Beijing's protection means naval escorts, diplomatic pressure, or something else has not been stated publicly.

Why This Matters for Energy Prices and Shipping

A six-month blockage is long enough to reshape markets, not just trigger short-term price swings. Oil traders have priced in supply disruption risk. But the real signal is in the forward curve—the prices for oil to be delivered months from now. If near-term oil contracts stay more expensive than later ones (called backwardation), it signals actual physical shortages rather than just traders taking bets. Liquefied natural gas spot prices in Asia are facing similar pressure: gas shipments that normally pass through Hormuz have no cheaper alternative route. Diverting around the Cape of Good Hope at Africa's tip adds roughly 15–20 extra days per voyage. That means shipping companies need more tankers to carry the same amount of oil, which drives up freight rates across the entire tanker market.

For countries like South Korea, Japan, and India that rely heavily on Middle Eastern crude, how long the disruption lasts is the crucial factor. Short outages can be covered using emergency oil reserves; six months cannot. India has grown more dependent on Gulf crude over the past decade and faces the sharpest hit to its import costs in the near term.

Asian refineries are getting squeezed from both sides: crude is more expensive, but demand for refined products like gasoline and diesel is weakening as China's economy slows. European refineries benefit slightly because some crude gets rerouted to Atlantic markets instead, but it is not enough to offset the wider global rise in energy costs that ripples through manufacturing.

The situation remains uncertain. The Pentagon's six-month estimate is a planning assumption, not a guarantee, and diplomatic channels between Washington, Tehran, and Beijing are still active. But when you combine the time needed to clear mines, elevated piracy risk, and multiple military powers operating in the same narrow waterway, the odds of a quick fix are low. Markets betting on a swift return to normal are placing a wager that the operational facts do not support.