AI Summary
5 min readThe ongoing US-Iran conflict has mostly closed the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most critical energy chokepoint, disrupting about 10 million barrels per day of oil—over 10% of global supply—and 20% of liquefied natural gas. This exceeds the 1973 Arab oil embargo's 6-7% share. Jason Bordoff, founding director of Columbia's Center on Global Energy Policy and former Obama NSC energy advisor, explains to Ezra Klein how risks could compound into a prolonged crisis worse than anything since the 1970s.
Strait of Hormuz Disruption Mechanics
The strait handles 28 million barrels of oil daily from Gulf producers like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, UAE, and Iran, plus LNG, petrochemicals, aluminum, and fertilizers. Iran has not fully physically closed it but created risk through drones, small boats, and occasional strikes, prompting tankers to halt. Insurance cancellations and precautionary shutdowns have cut flows; pre-crisis, 100 tankers passed daily, now far fewer. Workarounds exist—Saudi pipelines to the Red Sea, strategic reserve releases, eased sanctions on Russia and Iran—but they cover only part of the gap. Iran ironically still exports some oil through it. Physical attacks remain limited: Israel hit an Iranian gas field; Iran struck Qatar's LNG plant, signaling tit-for-tat escalation. Qatar estimates 3-5 years for repairs on damaged parts.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (01:01) **Crisis Overview** - Host sets stage with Trump-Iran threats and Strait of Hormuz closure risks
- 2 (02:34) **Scale of Disruption** - Bordoff explains largest-ever energy supply outage at 10-20% of global oil/LNG
- 3 (04:42) **Iran's Actions to Close Strait** - Tankers avoid transit voluntarily due to insurance cancellation and attacks
- 4 (07:27) **Asymmetric Warfare on Energy** - Iran exploits low-cost disruptions vs. US/Israel military superiority
- 5 (09:05) **US Flat-Footed Response** - Optimism for quick resolution underestimated Hormuz closure risk
- 6 (11:20) **Compounding Economic Effects** - Nonlinear impacts as reserves deplete; prices must destroy 10M bbl/day demand
- 7 (13:33) **US Winners and Losers** - High prices benefit producers/states but hit consumers hardest
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
Iran has currently shut off more than 10 percent of the world’s oil supply. If that goes on for a lot longer — or if the war escalates to include more strikes on energy infrastructure in the region — the price of oil could go through the roof, and the damage to the global economy could be catastrophic.
So what would that look like? What tools does the United States have to avert it? And how is this crisis already reverberating in countries around the world?
Jason Bordoff is the founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and a founding dean of the Columbia Climate School. He served as a special assistant to President Barack Obama and senior director for energy and climate change on the National Security Council.
In this conversation, Bordoff answers all my questions about the crisis so far and how things could spin out from here, the strategic positioning of the United States, Europe, Iran, Russia and China, the developing countries likely to suffer the most and the lessons the world might take from this.
Mentioned:
“Making the U.S. More Resilient to Oil Price Shocks” by Jason Bordoff and Spencer Dale
“The Return of the Energy Weapon” by Jason Bordoff and Meghan L. O’Sullivan
Book Recommendations:
Material World by Ed Conway
More and More and More by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz
Deliver Me from Nowhere by Warren Zanes
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
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