I don't know if I just don't get it, but all the quotes say 20% of oil etc goes through the straits, to me that means 80% doesn't, so why all the hand wringing and woe is the world, or can someone explain to me the issue better, thanks
I am no expert, this is just stuff I've read up on recently, but my understanding is it’s the sheer scale of it.
20% on it’s own doesn’t sound a lot. If your local supermarket has 20% less tomatoes or whatever delivered it’s not a big deal. But if the world suddenly loses 20% of it’s oil supply, that’s absolutely seismic.
And it’s not so much the volume, but the effect it would have on the price.
It would be unprecedented in scale – in the 1990 Gulf War 5% of the global oil supply was blocked and the price of oil tripled. In the Russia/Ukraine war 3% of the global supply was sanctioned and prices doubled.
So yeah 20% is absolutely huge, god knows what it would do to prices.