What's at stake for India in the Strait of Hormuz | Number Theory

The world, however, is paying for the war because of what it is doing to a water body – the Strait of Hormuz that connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman

The ongoing war in West Asia is being fought in the air as missiles and drones and fighter jets attack the participants. The world, however, is paying for the war because of what it is doing to a water body – the Strait of Hormuz that connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman – which is perhaps the most important when it comes to global trade in petroleum. This is because ships have almost stopped using it out of fear of being attacked by Iran and associated outcomes such as extremely high insurance premiums. What does this entail for India? Here is what the data shows.

Image sourced from BBC

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  Arrival of ships through Strait of Hormuz has ground to a halt

  PortWatch, a project of the International Monetary Fund and the University of Oxford, gives satellite-based vessel data for major chokepoints in the world. This shows that the marine traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has decreased dramatically since the US and Israel started bombing Iran on February 28, which led to Iran bombing it neighbours in retaliation. The seven-day moving average of ship arrivals through the route was 106 on February 27, which decreased to 29 by March 5, the last day for which this data is available, the lowest this number has ever been in the data series that begins on January 7, 2019. To be sure, this number is likely to come down further, as the seven-day average on March 5 includes the daily data for February 27, a day before the war began. A data interactive in The Economist shows that number of oil tankers passing the Strait of Hormuz “has slowed to a trickle” by March 8.
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  How does a Strait of Hormuz closure affect India?

  The closure of Hormuz affects maritime trade with eight countries: Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE. HT has also included trade with Yemen in this analysis because it is involved in the war. Trade data compiled by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) shows that these nine countries accounted for one-fifth of India’s imports and around 14% of exports in 2024-25. See Map
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  More than 40% of India’s petroleum imports, 30% of fertilizer imports come via Hormuz

  To be sure, it is more about what we import from these countries than how much. Despite India increasing its oil imports from Russia starting 2022, these nine countries accounted over half of India’s oil imports by value in 2024-25. Data from the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows that the Strait of Hormuz accounted for 44% of India’s imports of crude oil and condensate in 2023 and 37% of its consumption of petroleum and related fluids. Simply speaking, the Strait of Hormuz is the channel through which India gets almost half of its petroleum imports. While the strait may not be very important for India’s non-oil imports overall, it is for some individual non-oil items. Around a third of India’s fertilizer imports are from these nine countries, for example.
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  West Asian countries are also important for some of India’s agricultural exports

  While the nine countries have only a 14% share in India’s exports, they account for a higher proportion of India’s exports of agricultural products and ores and minerals: 21% and 18%, respectively. Among agricultural exports, the most likely to be affected commodity is rice as 36% of the total exports went to West Asian countries. Other important products where the nine countries have at least a 30% share are wheat, cashew, fresh fruits, poultry and dairy products, tea, and alcoholic beverages. To be sure, individually, these items account for less than 1% of India’s exports.