There’s an old saying in logistics: when the world catches a cold, shipping gets pneumonia. If you import or export goods and haven’t urgently reviewed your supply chain in the past two months, this is your overdue wake-up call.
The US and Israel launched coordinated strikes on Iran on 28 February. Iran responded by effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz – the world’s single most important shipping chokepoint – to hostile-nation vessels. Traffic through the strait has collapsed to around 5% of pre-war levels. As of today, it remains largely shut. The International Energy Agency has called it the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. That is not hyperbole.
What has actually happened
On 4 March 2026, Iran formally declared the Strait of Hormuz closed to vessels from the US, Israel, and their allies. The IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) has since attacked ships attempting transit, seized container vessels, and laid sea mines in the waterway. Before the conflict, roughly 3,000 vessels passed through the strait each month. In April, that figure dropped to 191. The IMO reported that by late April, approximately 20,000 mariners and 2,000 vessels were stranded in the Persian Gulf.
A ceasefire between the US and Iran was announced on 8 April, but the strait remains effectively closed. The US has responded with a counter-blockade on Iranian ports since 13 April. Negotiations, mediated by Pakistan, are ongoing – but no full reopening has occurred, and shipping companies are not returning to the pre-war routing. The situation remains highly fluid.
Why this hits UK businesses even if you don’t import from the Gulf
This is the question we’ve been asked most often by clients in the past two months. The answer is: because global supply chains are deeply interconnected, and the Strait of Hormuz sits at the centre of several of them.
China is the first and most important link. Around half of China’s oil imports transit the Strait of Hormuz. China’s manufacturing costs have risen sharply as a result, and those cost increases are working their way through to UK importers of Chinese goods – electronics, consumer products, machinery components, textiles. If more than a fraction of your imports originate from China, you are already feeling this.
Energy prices are the second channel. Brent crude peaked above $126 per barrel in March 2026 – the highest in years. Oil prices directly affect diesel costs for road freight, aviation fuel for air freight, and the energy costs embedded in manufactured goods. UK CPI inflation rose to 3.3% in March, driven in significant part by these pressures. Air freight costs have already doubled in some lanes.
Fertilisers are a less obvious but significant issue for food supply chains. Around 30% of the world’s internationally traded fertilisers normally transit the Strait of Hormuz. With those shipments disrupted at the start of the Northern Hemisphere planting season, agricultural input costs are rising – with downstream implications for food prices and retail supply chains.
Air freight capacity has also been squeezed. Temporary airspace closures across the Middle East caused thousands of flight cancellations. Since more than half of global air cargo travels in the hold of passenger aircraft, reduced flight capacity has hit air freight hard – particularly on lanes serving South and South-East Asia.
The Cape of Good Hope reroute: longer, more expensive, and congested
Vessels that previously transited the Strait of Hormuz are now diverting around the Cape of Good Hope – the same alternative route that became familiar during the Red Sea disruptions of 2024 and 2025. This adds up to two weeks to journey times from Asia to Europe, absorbs significant container capacity, and increases fuel costs per voyage substantially. The Cape reroute also creates knock-on congestion at ports that weren’t designed to handle the volume surge.
For UK businesses, this means extended lead times on Asian imports, tighter container availability, and spot freight rates that have risen steeply on affected lanes. If you are working with fixed-price supplier contracts that assumed pre-war transit times, those assumptions need to be revisited now.
The insurance picture has changed completely
War risk insurance premiums for Gulf transits have risen dramatically since February. More significantly, many standard cargo insurance policies have now excluded coverage for goods transiting the Strait of Hormuz or the broader Persian Gulf region. If you haven’t explicitly confirmed your war risk position with your insurer since February, you may currently be shipping without meaningful cover on those routes.
This is not a bureaucratic detail. It is a live financial exposure. Get confirmation in writing, not a verbal reassurance.
What UK businesses should be doing right now
- Map your supply chain exposure – identify every supplier whose goods touch the Gulf region, Strait of Hormuz, or who sources raw materials from the area. The indirect links (Chinese manufacturers using Gulf energy inputs) matter as much as the direct ones.
- Revise your lead time assumptions – add at least two weeks to any sea freight shipments rerouting via the Cape of Good Hope. Build that buffer into your stock planning immediately.
- Confirm your insurance cover in writing – contact your freight forwarder and insurer today and get written confirmation of exactly what is and isn’t covered for current routings. Do not assume.
- Review your air freight options for critical or time-sensitive goods – yes, costs have risen sharply, but for components or products where delays carry their own high cost, the maths may still favour air.
- Build buffer stock where you can – holding additional inventory is not ideal, but for key product lines, it provides a real cushion against further disruption.
- Talk to your freight forwarder about alternative origins – if you have flexibility on sourcing, nearshoring or diversifying to suppliers in Europe, Turkey, or North Africa reduces your exposure to the Gulf routing problem entirely.
- Shorten your quote validity windows – if you’re quoting customers on fixed delivery windows or product prices, build in explicit caveats about current supply chain uncertainty. Open-ended commitments made before the conflict need reviewing.
How long will this last?
Nobody knows – including the analysts, governments, and shipping lines who are paid to have a view on it. The ceasefire is fragile, negotiations are ongoing, and the IRGC has shown both the capability and the willingness to attack commercial vessels. Even in a best-case scenario where a comprehensive agreement is reached quickly, shipping companies will not immediately return to pre-war patterns. Insurers will remain cautious. Routes will take time to normalise. The IMF has warned that a prolonged conflict could tip already-weak global growth into recession.
The businesses that will come through this in the best shape are not necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets – they’re the ones that responded early, planned honestly, and worked with logistics partners who gave them real information rather than reassuring generalities.
At Quick Cargo, we’ve been actively managing the impact of the Strait of Hormuz closure on our clients’ supply chains since February. If you want a straight-talking assessment of how the current situation affects your specific shipments. Our team are here to help, give us a call on +44 (0) 1753 681900 or contact us here.
