Hormuz Nearly Shut: Brent Rockets to $119 then Slides to $90 as World Scrambles for Oil Fix

Great-power oil choke points have long rewritten markets: during the 1956 Suez Crisis roughly 2 m bpd (11 % of demand) vanished; the 1973 Arab embargo removed 4.3 m bpd (7 %). Today up to 20 m bpd—one-fifth of global consumption—hangs on a 33-km-wide channel. The episode exposes two structural realities: first, physical energy security still trumps paper barrels and SPR releases; second, Asian demand—chiefly China’s quiet imports of sanctioned Iranian crude—now shapes wartime flows more than Atlantic consumers. Whether prices settle or scream higher will hinge on clearing mines faster than insurers, shippers, and refineries re-price risk—a process measured in months, not news cycles. On a century horizon, each shock accelerates diversification: 1970s turmoil begot strategic reserves and North Sea drilling; 2020s shocks may fast-track electrification, alternate routes (Iraq-Turkey, UAE-Fujairah), and dethrone single-point chokepoints. If Hormuz stays volatile, the lesson that hydrocarbons are geopolitically brittle could prove as pivotal for the energy transition as the 1973 embargo was for fuel-efficiency standards.