“Commercial traffic has effectively stopped,” said a report from Windward Maritime AI, which tracks shipping traffic. “The key question is when do vessels re-establish export flows,” Alan Gelder, senior vice president of refining, chemicals and oil markets at Wood Mackenzie, said in an email. The firm said prices will rise considerably more if traffic through the strait does not resume quickly. “The most recent comparison is during the early days of the Russia/Ukraine conflict, when the fear of loss of Russian supplies drove the oil price to over US$125,” Gelder said. Oil is a global commodity, and its prices in the US and everywhere else are driven by market forces.

Source: New Zealand Herald March 03, 2026 02:33 UTC