strait of hormuz bogus information purveying -- i have heard from others the strait of hormuz is about 70 miles wide. however i always hear on tv oil discussions that the shipping lane is just 1 mile wide. thursday on cnbc squawk box john kilduff said it again in a discussion about $300 oil, etc. something was not correct so i did a little digging. the strait is not 1 mile wide, and i wish tv types would stop saying such crap.
at its narrowest point the strait of hormuz is 21 miles wide. currently with no directional traffic cop function in the strait other than the pilots of the oil tankers the current shipping lanes are six miles wide. there is a 2 mile wide lane for entrance, a 2 mile wide lane for exit, and a 2 mile wide guardband area in the middle to avoid collisions.
this is all done without traffic cop help in guiding the tankers and other ship traffic. if there were a severe military tanker sinking type problem in the shipping lanes, there is so much navigable water even at the 21 mile narrowest part that with external help in the form of directional traffic cops the oil tankers could get through the strait.
as i stated here over a year ago if there is a problem in the strait of hormuz, the price of oil will go down a lot over time. certainly in the short run on panic futures buying it would go up a lot. however once the futures pits realized a LOT of demand, perhaps 2, 3,4 million, or more barrels per day would go away, the price of oil would drop a large amount from the price before the hormuz problems. even after things got better with the straits, the demand for oil would be permanently suspect, because government and human behaviors would change to be more conservation and alternative fuel oriented.
en.wikipedia.org
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