Hormuz Zero Hour: A Sea Sentinel AI Simulation
Jul 7, 2025
TL;DR: Recent geopolitical escalations prompted us to run a simulation of what a 2-month Strait of Hormuz closure would look like, focusing on container traffic. Our Passage Incidents feature immediately identified 208 container vessels scheduled to transit the chokepoint between July 8 and August 31. These vessels represent a combined capacity of just over 1.2 million TEU. Assuming a 75% utilization rate, this equates to an estimated cargo value of nearly $45bn, with a daily cost of capital of up to $8.6mn.
The downstream impact would cripple specific global industries, cutting off 16% of the world's seaborne fertilizer exports and vital petrochemicals, while starving Gulf nations of up to 90% of their food imports.
Hormuz Zero Hour: A Sea Sentinel AI Simulation
The geopolitical situation in the Middle East is volatile. Following a US attack on its nuclear facilities, Iran's parliament has threatened to exercise its most powerful option: the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
While the world's media focuses on the 20 million barrels of oil that transit the chokepoint daily, that is only part of the story. A vast and complex ecosystem of non-energy trade relies on this artery. To quantify the fallout, Sea Sentinel AI ran a simulation. We modeled a two-month enduring closure, focusing on the container fleet—the lifeblood of global manufacturing and retail.
The results were immediate and stark.
The Blast Radius: A $38 Billion Floating Gridlock
Within seconds of the simulated closure, our platform’s Passage Incidents capability cross-referenced global fleet movements against the chokepoint. The system flagged 208 unique container vessels whose planned routes would take them through the Strait in the designated two-month period. (Note that we assume a vessel will not be able to enter the Persian Gulf at all. Therefore, we only consider each vessel’s first potential crossing and filter out all subsequent ones.)
The daily volatility of this disruption is clear, with the number of hindered vessels fluctuating significantly, peaking at 12 ships on a single day.
These are not small feeder ships. The fleet’s profile ranges from vessels of 500 TEU to Neo-Panamax class ships exceeding 14,000 TEU. The average capacity of an affected vessel is 5,860 TEU. In aggregate, this represents a floating nominal capacity of 1.2 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU).
To translate this into a realistic financial shock, we assume a conservative 75% vessel utilization rate. This brings the effective capacity to over 900,000 TEU. Using an industry average value of $50k per TEU [1], the total estimated value of cargo affected by the closure is nearly $45 billion.
This is nearly forty billion dollars in working capital immobilized. It is inventory that cannot be sold, parts that cannot be assembled, and capital that cannot be deployed. Using a baseline interest rate of 7%, the opportunity cost alone is a staggering $8.6 million for every single day the strait remains closed. (Note that this is arguably an upper bound, since not all incoming vessels are immediately stopped.)
The Anatomy of Disruption: Mapping the Affected Trade Lanes
The aggregate numbers are staggering, but the real story lies in which trade lanes bear the brunt of this capacity gridlock. Analyzing the total TEU capacity affected per lane—a direct proxy for economic value—reveals the true concentrations of risk.
Three critical narratives emerge from this data:
The Asia-Gulf Superhighway Grinds to a Halt. The single most impacted artery is the Asia ↔ Middle East lane, accounting for almost 500,000 TEU—almost half of the total affected capacity. This is the primary conduit for finished electronics, textiles, and consumer goods flowing from Asian manufacturing hubs into the Gulf, and for the petrochemicals and plastics flowing back to fuel those same industries. A closure here severs a foundational pillar of the global manufacturing supply chain.
Regional Collapse: The Intra-Gulf Lifeline is Cut. The second-largest impact by volume is on trade within the Middle East itself. These are not globe-spanning voyages but the vital feeder services that distribute goods from mega-hubs like Jebel Ali (Dubai) to smaller ports across the region. This number includes voyages completely inside the Persian Gulf, but also out of the Gulf, through the Strait of Hormuz. This paralysis would freeze local economies, stranding goods that have already completed 99% of their journey and halting final-mile delivery of everything from food to construction materials.
Beyond Asia: Europe and Africa's Deep Exposure. While the Asian connection is dominant, the data clearly shows this is not a localized problem. The Europe ↔ Middle East and Africa ↔ Middle East lanes represent a combined potential disruption of around 300,000 TEU. This highlights the deep interconnectedness of global trade, trapping high-value European machinery and critical African raw materials alongside Asian goods. Shippers on these routes, who may have felt insulated from Asia-centric supply chain risks, are now equally caught in the gridlock.
Where risk is magnified
Beyond the total volume, the type of vessel on each route adds another layer of complexity. The largest, most valuable ships are typically deployed on the longest, most strategic routes. Our analysis of the average vessel size per trade lane confirms this.
The Africa ↔ Europe ↔ Middle East pass-through route utilizes the largest vessels on average, with capacities approaching 12,000 TEU. This means that while fewer individual vessels may be on this route compared to the main Asia lane, each disruption is a high-stakes event, immobilizing a massive amount of capital on a single hull and amplifying the impact of port congestion and rerouting decisions.
Unpacking the Cargo: Fertilizers, Plastics, and Food
While our simulation focused on the 1 million TEU of container capacity, the true economic impact of a closure extends to the bulk commodities and raw materials that also depend on this vital waterway. To understand the full scope of the disruption, we must look beyond the container fleet to the cargo carried by bulkers and tankers transiting the same chokepoint.
Outbound Cargo: The World’s Building Blocks
A closure would instantly cut off key industrial and agricultural supply chains that travel via all vessel types.
Chemicals & Plastics: Saudi Arabia’s non-oil exports are dominated by chemical products and plastics, accounting for nearly 46% of its outbound trade [2]. While some are containerized, many are shipped in bulk and are fundamental inputs for the global automotive, packaging, and consumer goods industries.
Agriculture & Fertilizers: The Gulf is a powerhouse for fertilizer production, typically shipped in bulk carriers. Third-party data shows roughly 16% of the world's entire seaborne fertilizer exports transit Hormuz [3]. A shutdown threatens crop yields in key importers like India and Brazil.
Industrial Metals: The Jebel Ali port in Dubai is a major transshipment hub for aluminum, copper, and steel [4], often moved as break-bulk or in containers. These exports are now floating in limbo.
Inbound Cargo: A Lifeline Cut Short
The consequences for the Gulf nations themselves are arguably more severe.
Food Security: The GCC states import 80-90% of their staple foods [5]. Qatar, for example, imports 90% of its cereals and meat [6]. A blockade severs this lifeline.
Construction & Infrastructure: The region's ambitious mega-projects are built with imported materials. Steel, cement, heavy machinery, and power-generation equipment all arrive by sea [7].
Industrial Components & Consumer Goods: The Gulf’s manufacturing sector depends on imported components. Its affluent population relies on imported vehicles, electronics, and pharmaceuticals. All of this comes to a halt.
Second-Order Effects: The Helium Crisis
The disruption isn’t limited to containers and bulk carriers. Some of the most critical, high-value supply chains rely on specialized vessels carrying unique cargo. A prime example is a resource many don't associate with the Middle East: *high voice* Helium.
Qatar is one of the world's largest exporters of helium, a byproduct of its massive LNG operations, which is transported in specialized ISO tank containers on container ships or via dedicated gas carriers. Helium is indispensable for critical high-tech and medical sectors. It is used to cool the magnets in MRI scanners and is essential for semiconductor fabrication [8].
A Hormuz closure effectively cuts off the world from Qatari helium, regardless of how it's shipped. This would send a shockwave through the global chip industry and healthcare systems—a ripple effect far removed from the Gulf's shores and its billions in trapped cargo.
From Chaos to Clarity
In a crisis, the speed and precision of information is the most valuable asset.
Most logistics teams would learn of a Hormuz closure from a news alert. They would then begin a frantic, manual process of trying to identify which of their shipments might be affected. They cannot count on their visibility providers in this case.
This is reactive. It is inefficient. It is too late.
Our platform operates on a different principle. For a Sea Sentinel AI client, the process would be automated and instant.
Detection: The Passage Incident is automatically created and mapped to the Strait of Hormuz.
Correlation: The system instantly identifies every vessel in its database whose route intersects with the closure zone.
API-Driven Insights: Our platform doesn't just send an alert; it provides the structured data for our customers' systems to react instantly. Their platforms would receive a real-time API response: PassageIncidentID: '26a35...' is now active, affecting vessel IMO: '9629031' on leg: 5. This allows their own dashboards, risk models, and alerting systems to immediately flag the affected shipments and trigger automated workflows.
This is the difference between reading a headline about a storm and having a real-time data feed telling you your house is in its path. Logistics professionals shift from crisis management to proactive, strategic decision-making in the first critical hours.
The Strait of Hormuz remains open today. But it, like other global chokepoints, represents a permanent vulnerability in the world's supply chains. The question is not if a major disruption will occur, but whether you will have the intelligence to navigate it.
Want to gain an advantage over your competitors by moving from reactive to proactive? Contact us for a demo!
Sources
[1] Port Economics, Management and Policy. (2022). Value of Containerized Trade (new).
[2] General Authority for Statistics, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. (2024). International Trade Report, November 2024.
[3] Kpler. (2025, June 18). Strait of Hormuz - what's at stake?
[4] DP World. (2021). Jebel Ali Port and JAFZA See Steady Growth in the Construction and Steel Sector.
[5] World Economic Forum. (2025, February). The GCC is increasing food security through innovation.
[6] MDPI. (2022). Managing Food Imports for Food Security in Qatar.
[7] General Authority for Statistics, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. (2024). Breakdown of Imports by HS2 Sections.
[8] ChemAnalyst. (2025). QatarEnergy Secures 20-Year Helium Supply Deal with China's G-gas.
Image credits: NASA, Visible Earth (https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/images/102135/persian-gulf)