Hormuz Cannot Be Pipelined Away: Why the Strait Will Remain Indispensable

Posted on by Elijah J Magnier

By Elijah J. Magnier –

United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has predicted that the Strait of Hormuz will become irrelevant within two years. In an interview in Arizona in early August 2026, he argued that Iran’s use of the waterway as a strategic chokepoint had accelerated the construction of alternative export routes. He expected that between 50 and 70 per cent of the energy currently passing through Hormuz would eventually travel through underground pipelines, reducing the strait to what he called “just another body of water”. The prediction contains a valid observation but reaches an unsustainable conclusion. Bessent has confused a partial Saudi Arabian and Emirati oil solution with a comprehensive regional energy solution. The two are not equivalent.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are expanding their capacity to export crude oil without entering the strait. These projects will reduce their vulnerability to a maritime closure and weaken one aspect of Iran’s leverage. They cannot, however, make Hormuz irrelevant within two years. They do not provide alternative routes for most Gulf oil exporters, nearly five million barrels a day of petroleum products, Qatari liquefied natural gas or the extensive commercial trade conducted through Gulf ports.

The scale of the existing dependency is the starting point. According to the International Energy Agency, an average of nearly 20 million barrels a day of crude oil, condensates and petroleum products passed through Hormuz in 2025. This represented approximately one quarter of the world’s seaborne oil trade. Around 15 million barrels consisted of crude oil and condensates, while almost five million barrels were refined products.

The volumes were distributed among several exporters. Saudi Arabia shipped approximately 6.23 million barrels a day through the strait, the Emirates 3.24 million, Iraq 3.63 million, Iran 2.41 million, Kuwait 2.37 million, Qatar 1.43 million and Bahrain about 210,000 barrels.

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Published by Elijah J Magnier

Elijah J. Magnier is a veteran war correspondent and analyst specialising in military affairs, intelligence, strategic affairs and political risk. He has spent nearly four decades living and reporting inside countries at war, often from the front lines, while developing long-standing access to political leaders, military and intelligence officials, diplomats, armed non-state actors and communities directly affected by conflict. His field experience includes the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the Iran–Iraq War, the Lebanese Civil War, the 1991 Gulf War, the wars in the former Yugoslavia, conflict in Sudan, the war in Afghanistan and Yemen, the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and its aftermath, the 2006 Lebanon War, and the wars in Libya and Syria. He has lived for extended periods in Lebanon, Bosnia, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria, allowing him to follow conflicts, political transformations and regional networks beyond the limitations of short-term war reporting. His work focuses on warfare and deterrence, terrorism and counterterrorism, intelligence, political violence, armed non-state actors, regional security and the relationship between military power and political outcomes. He has also served as an adviser to the European Parliament’s Rapporteur on Iraq and Lebanon. Magnier holds a PhD in Policing and Criminal Justice from Liverpool John Moores University and an MSc in Counterterrorism Studies from the University of London. He has undertaken advanced studies in terrorism—including terrorist ideologies, financing and counterterrorism—at the University of St Andrews; terrorism and counterterrorism at Leiden University; and negotiation, including international and cross-cultural negotiation, at ESSEC Business School in Paris. His work combines sustained field access with academic analysis of war, sovereignty, deterrence and political violence.