Pick a shock
Strait of Hormuz disruption
The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow sea passage that a large share of the world's seaborne oil and much of its LNG must pass through. This scenario explores how a disruption — of a length you choose — could add pressure across energy and far beyond it. It makes no claim that any disruption is happening now; it asks what could follow IF a disruption lasted a given time.
A large share of the world's seaborne oil and LNG passes Hormuz, so disruption there is a closely-watched energy risk channel.
📌 Source-backed update () Latest review added a source-backed pointer to the EIA Weekly Petroleum Status Report for tracking U.S. petroleum stocks and flows — Warconomy adds no number and treats it as a tracker, not a forecast. EIA Weekly Petroleum Status Report
Watch next: Tanker rerouting and war-risk insurance around the strait, via the EIA and IEA.
Source checked: U.S. EIA — petroleum & energy data
Baseline & source strength
Chokepoint context (the routes and what depends on them) is source-linked on the Hormuz page and EIA oil-transit summaries. No current transit count or price is asserted here. Citation-only source
Illustrative starting points — every value below stays editable. These are your assumptions, not a forecast.
Your assumptions — change these to move the result
Change these assumptions to see the result move. Nothing here is measured — every value is yours to set. The two chips above are shortcuts for the first two.
How big is the shock?
What could soften it?
These buffers push the pressure back down — the more of each, the smaller the modelled result.
In plain terms: Little fuel pressure in this scenario — supply and buffers likely absorb most of it.
A composite of your own assumptions (severity, share and duration, eased by rerouting, spare capacity, inventories and policy) — not a price, a percentage change, a probability, or a forecast. Higher means your inputs describe a bigger, longer, less-buffered shock.
Illustrative sector pressure
Each bar is the same illustrative composite of your assumptions, scaled down for second-order exposure — not a price, a percentage, or a forecast. The direct/second-order split is drawn from this scenario's own exposure map.
How the pressure could travel
- Transit disruption
- Energy supply risk
- Freight & insurance
- Downstream costs
- Households & budgets
- Transit disruption: Tankers reroute, slow, or wait; war-risk insurance premiums can rise.
- Energy supply risk: Crude and LNG availability tightens for import-dependent buyers.
- Freight & insurance: Higher shipping and insurance costs spread to other cargoes.
- Downstream costs: Petrochemicals, fertilizer feedstock, power and fuel feel input pressure.
- Households & budgets: Fuel, electricity and subsidy/inflation pressure in exposed economies.
Impact matrix
Commodities:Crude oilLNG / natural gasPetrochemicalsFertilizer feedstock
Regions exposed:Middle EastAsiaEuropeDeveloping economies
Households Fuel, heating and electricity, plus the cost of anything that has to be delivered, could feel pressure — most in import-dependent economies.
Businesses Airlines, logistics, petrochemical and fertilizer producers are most exposed; energy-intensive manufacturers feel input-cost pressure.
Government Import-dependent states can face fuel-subsidy and inflation pressure; energy exporters may see a revenue swing.
What would this mean for you?
Where this shock could show up in everyday life. What drives it: your assumptions in this scenario. It names a channel and a direction — not a price, and not a forecast.
What this does not include: Any claim that a disruption is occurring or will occur.
Related Warconomy pages
What this does not prove: A scenario about economic channels and durations, not a prediction that Hormuz will be disrupted. Actual effects depend on duration, spare capacity, reserves, rerouting, contracts, insurance and policy response.
How it works & what it won't do
The Global Shock Simulator turns Warconomy's briefings and chokepoint pages into something you can explore. Choose a conflict-economy shock — a Strait of Hormuz disruption, a Red Sea diversion, a Taiwan contingency, a rare-earth export restriction, a sanctions escalation and more — then set assumptions for how long, how severe and how widespread it is, and how much rerouting, spare capacity, inventories and policy could cushion it. The tool shows the economic pathways, an impact matrix with source-strength badges, and a single 'pressure' gauge built only from your assumptions. It predicts nothing and invents no prices.
- Source strength is labelled on every element: official data, historical pattern, current watch item, user assumption, citation-only, or unavailable.
- The pressure gauge is a composite of your own assumptions — not a price, a forecast, or a probability.
- Taiwan scenarios are hypothetical and economic-only; rare earths are kept distinct from lithium, cobalt and copper.
- Machine-readable at /scenario-lab/global-shock/data.json.
Want to see two shocks next to each other? Compare scenarios side by side →
How to read the source-strength badges
- Official data — a source-backed value Warconomy carries (e.g. a World Bank or FAO price).
- Historical pattern — a documented historical pattern or analogy, not a current measurement.
- Current watch item — a curated current-signals watch item — what to watch, with no current number asserted.
- User assumption — a value you set on a slider; it is your assumption, not a measurement.
- Citation-only source — an authoritative external source is named, but no value is held here.
- No source-backed value — no safe source-backed value exists; the pathway is qualitative only.
What this tool deliberately does not do
- It does not forecast prices, volumes, probabilities, or whether any event will occur.
- It makes no military assessment; the Taiwan scenarios explore economic channels only.
- It asserts no current shipping, freight, oil, casualty or displacement number.
- It is not investment, trading, legal or policy advice.
Machine-readable export: /scenario-lab/global-shock/data.json.