2026 crisisPosts by

Between twenty and thirty thousand seafarers are aboard two to three thousand stranded merchant vessels in the Gulf today. Most are Indian nationals. Drinking water is running out. At least one onboard death has been attributed to medevac failure. Today two Indian flagged ships were fired on in the same waterway. A functioning chokepoint authority would treat their welfare as standing operations, not as a humanitarian footnote.

Russia sent 90 percent of its Q1 2026 crude exports to China and India. It is the commercial beneficiary of a crisis it helped block the UN from resolving. Understanding the Moscow windfall is understanding why any Hormuz governance regime that can actually work has to be designed to bypass Security Council veto dynamics.

Japanese refiners get 95 percent of crude from the Middle East and 70 percent through Hormuz. Tokyo has been notably silent through the crisis. That silence is deliberate, strategic, and about to break. When it does, Japan brings capabilities few other states can match.

The IRGC fired on a tanker and a projectile struck a container vessel in Hormuz today. Two of the ships are Indian flagged. India summoned Iran’s ambassador. CENTCOM has now turned back 23 vessels in the Gulf of Oman. A strait with a multilateral authority could have prevented all of this by design.

India is the world’s third largest oil importer. This month the US waiver on Russian crude expired on April 11 and the US Navy blockaded Iranian ports on April 13. Indian refiners lost about 3 million barrels per day of Hormuz transiting supply. Strategic reserves cover 30 days. China’s cover 300.

At 19:00 GMT on Friday, Iran’s foreign minister declared the strait ‘completely open’ for the ceasefire. By Saturday morning, the IRGC said control had returned to ‘its previous state.’ Brent crude traded 11.5 percent below Thursday in the interim. The whipsaw is exactly what an institutional authority is designed to prevent.

The Suez Canal Authority was built in 1957 during the reopening of the canal, not during the crisis and not years later. The 2026 Hormuz moment is the same narrow window. Thirty days to build the institution, or wait fifteen years for the next crisis.

Kashan, Rayan, Daisy, Golbon, Rich Starry, Christianna, Elpis, Hong Lu, G Summer: named vessels visible in LSEG tracking data tell a story of a chokepoint where every commercial actor is lying about its position because no neutral authority exists to give them a lawful alternative.

Thirty non-combatant countries gathered at the Elysee Palace today to launch the Strait of Hormuz Maritime Freedom of Navigation Initiative. The United States was not invited. That absence is the initiative’s most important design choice.

Patrick Pouyanné, CEO of TotalEnergies, told the IMF/World Bank spring meetings that the industry would rather pay to transit Hormuz than face closure — citing Suez and Panama as precedents. He is the first supermajor CEO to publicly endorse the principle of a structured chokepoint toll.