Global Economy — 2026-06-16

Strait of Hormuz Reopening Faces Months of Delays as Shippers Warn of Mine Risks and Insurance Gaps

BLUFSequential bottlenecks from mine clearance to insurance recertification to vessel backlog clearing make it unlikely that Hormuz transits recover to even half pre-war levels by September, prolonging energy supply constraints into 2027.

Reuters, citing five Western maritime security sources, reported that minesweeping could take 40 to 50 days before shipping, insurance, and oil companies are confident enough to transit the strait 1. Secretary of State Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on June 2 that Iran had "mined large segments of Hormuz," and Germany's navy on June 11, citing U.S. and British navies, identified mines at four locations around the strait 1. Kpler data showed 483 commercial vessels trapped in the Arabian Gulf as of Monday, with daily transits running at 12 to 15 ships against a pre-war average of 120 to 140 23. Capital Economics estimated 80 percent of energy flows would resume by end of Q3, with normalization potentially stretching into 2027, constrained by shipping logistics and war-risk insurance rather than production capacity 4.

Analysis
Daily transits are unlikely to exceed 60 ships by September 30. Mine clearance runs 40 to 50 days from mid-June, putting verified safe corridors no earlier than late July, with war-risk insurance recalibration beginning only after clearance is certified. The 483 backlogged vessels must exit before normal inbound traffic builds, contributing four to eight additional weeks at current rates. Production restarts carry a third dependency: shut-in wells cannot resume until inbound tankers first absorb maxed-out storage. Analytic confidence is moderate, grounded in convergent Western maritime security assessments and shipping operator statements, with insurers' post-clearance certification pace the primary variable open-source reporting cannot bound. Iran may instead have overstated the mine threat as a negotiating instrument, leaving mine density lower than assessed. In that case, recovery ahead of the clearance window would trigger repositioning orders in August rather than sustained reserve depletion through year-end.

5 sources