Strait of Hormuz

The Strait of Hormuz (in Persian: تنگه هرمز‎, Tangeh-ye Hormoz; in Arabic: مضيق هرمز‎, Maḍīq Hurmuz, for the nearby island of Hormuz) is a strait (arm of sea) narrow between the Gulf of Oman, located to the southeast, and the Persian Gulf, to the southwest. Iran is located on the north coast and the Omani exclave of Musandam on the south coast.

Currently it has strategic importance because it is located at the exit of the Persian Gulf, which is rich in oil. Its width is ~60 to 100 kilometers. Almost 20% of the world's oil and approximately 35% traded by sea passes through the strait, making it a very important strategic point for international trade.

History

The opening to the Persian Gulf was described, but not given a name, in the Voyage of the Erythrean Sea, a sailor's guide of the 20th century I says:

At the top of these islands of Calaei there is a mountain range called Calon, and it continues little further, the mouth of the Persian Gulf, where there is a lot of diving for the pearl mussel. On the left of the strait is large the mountains called Asabon and, on the right, it rises to the view another round and high mountain called Semiramis, among them the passage through the strait is about six hundred stadiums, beyond which the very large and wide sea, the Persian Gulf, reaches far into the interior. At the top of this Gulf there is a commercial town designated by law called Apologus, located near Charaex Spasini and the Eufrates River.

Eritrean Sea Periple, chapter 35

In the 15th-17th centuries, the Kingdom of Ormus, which seems to have given its name to the strait, was located here. Scholars, historians and linguists derive the name "Hormuz" from the local Persian word هورمغ Hur-mogh meaning date palm. [doubtful - discuss] In the local dialects of Hurmoz and Minab, this strait is still called Hurmogh and has the above mentioned. The similarity of this word to the name of the Persian god هرمز Hormoz (a variant of Ahura Mazda) has given rise to the popular belief that these words are related.

Jodocus Hondius labels the Strait Basra fretum ("strait of Basra") on his 1606 map of the Ottoman Empire.

Navigation

To reduce the risk of collision, ships moving through the strait follow a Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS): incoming ships use one lane, outgoing ships use another, each lane is two lanes wide. miles. The lanes are separated by a two-mile-wide “median.”

To pass through the Strait, ships pass through the territorial waters of Iran and Oman under the transit passage provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Although not all countries have ratified the convention Most countries, including the US, accept these customary navigation rules as codified in the Convention.

In April 1959, Iran altered the legal status of the strait by expanding its territorial sea to 12 nautical miles (22 km) and declaring that it would only recognize transit by innocent passage through the newly expanded area. In July 1972, Oman also expanded its territorial sea to 12 nautical miles (22 km) by decree. Thus, by mid-1972, the Strait of Hormuz was completely "closed" through the combined territorial waters of Iran and Oman. During the 1970s, neither Iran nor Oman attempted to prevent warships from passing through the strait, but in the 1980s, both countries claimed that they were different under customary (ancient) law. Upon ratifying UNCLOS in August 1989, Oman submitted declarations confirming its 1981 royal decree that only innocent passage is permitted through its territorial sea. The statements further stated that prior permission was required before foreign warships could pass through Oman's territorial waters. Upon signing the convention in December 1982, Iran submitted a declaration declaring that " only states party to the Law of the Sea Convention will be entitled to benefit from the contractual rights created therein, including "the right of transit passage through straits used for international purposes". navigation". In May 1993, Iran enacted a comprehensive law on maritime areas, several of which conflicted with the provisions of UNCLOS, including the requirement that warships, submarines, and nuclear-powered vessels obtain a permit before conducting an innocent passage through Iran's territorial waters. It did not recognize any of Oman's and Iran's claims and has contested each of them.

Oman has a link quality indicator (LQI) to monitor the TSS in the Strait of Hormuz. This site is located on a small island at the peak of Musandam governorate.

Iran's ability to impede shipping

The Millennium Challenge 2002 was a major war-gaming exercise conducted by the United States military in 2002. According to a 2012 article in The Christian Science Monitor, it simulated an attempt by Iran to close the strait. The hypotheses and results were controversial. In the article, Iran's strategy defeats the material superiority of the US military.

A 2008 article in International Security argued that Iran could seal or prevent traffic in the Strait for a month, and that a US attempt to reopen it would likely escalate the conflict. In a A later issue, however, the magazine published a response that questioned some key assumptions and suggested a much shorter timeline for reopening.

In December 2011, the Navy of the Islamic Republic of Iran began a ten-day exercise in international waters along the strait. Iranian Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari stated that the strait would not be closed during the exercise; Iranian forces could easily achieve this, but such a decision must be made at the political level.

Captain John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, was quoted in a December 2011 Reuters article: "Efforts to increase tension in that part of the world are futile and counterproductive. For our part, we feel comfortable that we have sufficient capabilities in the region to fulfill our commitments to our friends and partners, as well as to the international community." In the same article, Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert at the Brookings Institution, stated: "The expectation is that the US military will be able to deal with any Iranian threat relatively quickly."

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated in January 2012 that Iran "has invested in capabilities that could, in fact, block the Strait of Hormuz for a time." He also stated: "We have invested in capabilities to make sure that, if that happens, we can defeat it."

A May 2012 article by Nilufer Oral, a Turkish maritime law researcher, concludes that both UNCLOS and the 1958 High Seas Convention would be violated if Iran carried out its threat to block the passage of ships such as oil tankers, and that the act of passage is not legally related to the imposition of economic sanctions. The article further states that a coastal State can prevent "non-suspendable innocent passage or transit" only if 1) there is a threat or actual use of force, occurred during the passage, against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of a State bordering the strait; or 2) the ship otherwise violates the principles of international law enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations.

Traffic statistics

A 2007 report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies also noted that 17 million barrels left the Persian Gulf daily, but that oil flows through the Strait accounted for about 40% of all oil traded in the world..

According to the United States Energy Information Administration, in 2011, an average of 14 oil tankers per day passed from the Persian Gulf through the Strait, transporting 17 million barrels (2,700,000 m³) of crude oil. This was said to represent 35% of global oil shipments and 20% of oil traded worldwide. The report notes that more than 85% of these crude oil exports went to Asian markets, with Japan, India, South Korea and China being the main destinations.

Alternative maritime routes

In June 2012, Saudi Arabia reopened the Iraq Through Saudi Arabia (IPSA) Pipeline, confiscated from Iraq in 2001 and which travels from Iraq through Saudi Arabia to a Red Sea port. It will have a capacity of 1.65 million barrels per day.

In July 2012, the UAE began using the new Habshan-Fujairah pipeline from the Habshan fields in Abu Dhabi to the Fujairah oil terminal in the Gulf of Oman, effectively bypassing the Strait of Hormuz. It has a maximum capacity of about 2 million barrels per day, more than three-quarters of the UAE's production in 2012. The UAE is also increasing Fujairah's storage and offloading capacity. The UAE is building the largest facility in Fujairah of crude oil storage in the world, with capacity for 14 million barrels, to boost the growth of Fujairah as a global oil and trade center. The Habshan – Fujairah route ensures the energy security of the UAE and has the advantage of being a land pipeline transport which is considered the cheapest form of oil transportation and also reduces insurance costs as oil tankers would no longer enter the Persian Gulf.

In an article published in July 2012 in Foreign Policy, Gal Luft compared Iran and the Strait of Hormuz to the Ottoman Empire and the Dardanelles, a choke point for Russian grain shipments a century ago. He indicated that tensions around the Strait of Hormuz are leading those currently dependent on shipping from the Persian Gulf to look for maritime transportation alternatives. He claimed that Saudi Arabia was considering building new pipelines to Oman and Yemen, and that Iraq could reactivate the disused Iraq-Syria pipeline to send crude to the Mediterranean. Luft said the reduction in Hormuz traffic "presents the West with a new opportunity to increase its current strategy of containment of Iran.".

Iran Air Flight 655 shot down

Iran Air Flight 655 was a commercial flight operated by Iran Air between Bandar Abbas (Iran) and Dubai (United Arab Emirates). On Sunday, July 3, 1988, near the end of the Iran-Iraq War, the plane was shot down just south of Qeshm Island by the American missile cruiser USS Vincennes (CG-49), killing all 290 on board. The Vincennes was in Iranian territorial waters at the time.