Seaborne crude oil — from the country it loaded in, through the narrow waterway it crossed, to the country it discharged in. These are the six passages the US Energy Information Administration breaks down by origin and destination. Press play from 2020 to mid-2025: Red Sea attacks shut the Bab el-Mandeb at the end of 2023, Iraq's Suez ribbon collapses and Iraqi crude reappears the long way round the Cape of Good Hope, while sanctioned Russian barrels thicken the Danish Straits into a new ribbon to India. Each waterway counts its own traffic, so a Gulf cargo bound for China is counted at Hormuz and again at Malacca. Tap or hover any country or waterway.
Data & source
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, World Oil Transit
Chokepoints (FY2026 edition, EIA analysis of Vortexa tanker tracking) · US government
public domain · fetched —.
Scope. The ribbons are crude oil and condensate only — no refined
products, no LNG, no dry cargo — for the six waterways EIA publishes an origin and
destination breakdown for. Values are annual averages in million barrels per day, and 1H
2025 covers January to June only. Cargoes are dated by loading date. These are estimates
from tanker tracking, not customs returns.
The same barrel can be counted twice. Every waterway tallies its own
traffic, so crude leaving the Persian Gulf for China is counted at Hormuz and again at
Malacca. The column totals are therefore transits, not world trade: —
million b/d of crude was counted at these six waterways in the latest period, against
— million b/d of world maritime oil trade and
— million b/d of world oil supply.
Two chokepoints are missing. EIA also tracks Bab el-Mandeb
(—) and the Panama Canal (—), but
publishes no origin/destination breakdown for either, so neither can be drawn here. Their
absence is visible anyway: the Bab el-Mandeb collapse is what re-routes Suez traffic around
the Cape of Good Hope, which is not a chokepoint but the long way round.
Grouping. Partner names are EIA's own, at whatever granularity each
waterway's data supports — so "other Europe" is all of Europe for Hormuz and the Cape, but
Europe minus the named countries for Suez, the Danish Straits and the Dardanelles. Two
residual labels that mean the same bucket ("Americas", "Europe") are folded into "other
Americas" and "other Europe". Countries below — million b/d in every
period are drawn inside "other"; on narrow screens that threshold is higher, so a phone
shows fewer named countries than a desktop. Full series are in
chokepoints.json.