Can These Pipelines Replace the Strait of Hormuz?

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]Every single day about 20 million barrels of oil squeeze through this tiny gap, the Strait of Hormuz. That's roughly 1/5 of the world's oil supply moving through a corridor only a few miles wide. So, if this choke point shuts down, global energy markets panic almost instantly. So, Gulf countries built backup routes. Saudi Arabia runs a massive east-west pipeline across the country to the Red Sea. It can move about 7 million barrels of oil per day.

[00:00:24]The UAE built another line from its oil fields to Fujairah, outside the strait, carrying up to about 1.8 million barrels daily. Here's the twist though, even if those pipelines run at full capacity, together they move only around 8 to 9 million barrels per day. [music] Normally, about 20 million barrels pass through Hormuz. In other words, the backups can't even replace [music] half the flow, and that's why the Strait of Hormuz matters to everyone, even if you live thousands of miles away. When a single narrow waterway carries [music] about a fifth of the planet's oil, any conflict there can ripple through fuel prices, economies, and geopolitics [music] worldwide. So, here's the real question.

[00:00:59]If the world's most important oil choke point were actually blocked, and the pipelines can't replace the flow, what do you think happens to global [music] energy markets next?