Energy Trade Flows

Where crude oil, LNG and refined products normally move by sea, the chokepoints they depend on, and what the 2026 disruptions (Hormuz, the Red Sea, Panama, Russian sanctions) have done to those flows. Start with Main flows to learn the map, then switch to Disruptions now.

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How to read this map (2-minute primer)
  1. Producers are far from consumers. The Gulf, Russia, the US, West Africa, Brazil, Qatar and Australia export; China, India, Japan, Korea and Europe import. Almost all of it goes by sea.
  2. Ships funnel through a handful of chokepoints (yellow diamonds). Click one to see what passes through it and roughly how much. Hormuz and Malacca alone carry about 40% of seaborne oil.
  3. Prices connect the routes. A cargo goes where the price difference beats the freight cost (the "arbitrage"). When a chokepoint closes, ships take longer routes, freight jumps, and the regions that relied on that flow bid up the benchmark they buy on.
  4. Line width shows three rough size classes, not exact volumes. Routes are drawn through real ports and chokepoints but are illustrative, not ship-tracking data.
drag to rotate · click a route or a yellow chokepoint to focus on it