Facts in «Strait of Hormuz»
Every number on screen and in the narration, with its source and basis. Where two sources give different estimates, the film shows both and says whose is whose.
Sources: - EIA: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Today in Energy, "Amid regional conflict, the Strait of Hormuz remains critical oil chokepoint", 16 June 2025, https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=65504 - IEA: International Energy Agency, "Strait of Hormuz", last updated February 2026, https://www.iea.org/about/oil-security-and-emergency-response/strait-of-hormuz
| Claim in the film | Source | Quoted wording / note |
|---|---|---|
| "About a fifth of the world's oil passes through one narrow strait." | EIA | "In 2024, oil flow through the strait averaged 20 million barrels per day (b/d), or the equivalent of about 20% of global petroleum liquids consumption." The narration says "a fifth of the world's oil"; the basis is equivalent to about 20 % of global consumption. |
| "It is the Gulf's only way out to the open sea." | Geography | The Strait of Hormuz is the Persian Gulf's only connection to the open ocean. |
| 21 NM · 39 KM at the narrowest point | IEA | "At its narrowest point, the Strait is only 21 nautical miles wide (39 km)". Other publications give "21 miles (33 km)" or 54 km, depending on how islands are counted; the film uses the IEA figure, in nautical miles. The measured line is drawn between Larak Island and Great Quoin Island; Great Quoin is too small for the z10 elevation data and is marked with a dot. |
| Two lanes, each 2 miles wide, a buffer between | IEA | "2-mile-wide navigable channels (3.7 km) for inbound and outbound shipping" and "a 2-mile-wide buffer zone". On screen: INBOUND · 2 NM / BUFFER · 2 NM / OUTBOUND · 2 NM. The OSM lane and boundary lines agree (about 1 nm from a lane's centre to its edge). |
| "The channel is deep enough for the largest tankers." | EIA | "The strait is deep enough and wide enough to handle the world's largest crude oil tankers". |
| ≈ 80 M under the lanes, the 0–100 m section | Measurement | Read along the Larak – Great Quoin line from AWS Terrain Tiles (terrarium, z10; bathymetry mostly from GEBCO, ~150 m cells). Shown with water depth ×150 and land ×3.2, stated on screen. |
| 20 million barrels a day, 2024 average | EIA | "In 2024, oil flow through the strait averaged 20 million barrels per day". |
| Two bypass pipelines: East–West (Abqaiq → Yanbu, Red Sea) and Habshan → Fujairah (Gulf of Oman) | EIA | "runs from the Abqaiq oil processing center near the Persian Gulf to the Yanbu port on the Red Sea"; the UAE line "links onshore oil fields to the Fujairah export terminal in the Gulf of Oman". Paths are simplified (only the end points are exact). |
| Spare capacity 2.6 million b/d (EIA estimate) | EIA | "about 2.6 million b/d of capacity from the Saudi and UAE pipelines … could be available to bypass the Strait of Hormuz in the event of a supply disruption". |
| Spare capacity 3.5–5.5 million b/d (IEA estimate) | IEA | "an estimated 3.5 to 5.5 mb/d of available capacity". The narration joins the two estimates into one range: "only 2.6 to 5.5 million". |
| "For most of this oil, there is no other way out." | EIA | "Most volumes that transit the strait have no alternative means of exiting the region". |
| 84% of the crude oil through Hormuz went to Asia in 2024 | EIA | "We estimate that 84% of the crude oil and condensate and 83% of the liquefied natural gas that moved through the Strait of Hormuz went to Asian markets in 2024." The narration's "Most of it heads for Asia" summarises this. |
| Oil terminals: Al Basrah Oil Terminal, Mina al-Ahmadi, Kharg Island, Ras Tanura, Ras Laffan, Das Island, Ruwais | Public coordinates | Positions are real; the routes between them are drawn ("routes schematic" on screen). |
| Routes from the strait to India, China, Japan and South Korea, Europe | Illustration | Schematic sea paths, not tracked voyages. |
| The traffic separation scheme | OpenStreetMap (ODbL) | Ways 220138792 and 220138754 (seamark separation_lane) and their boundaries; OSM holds only these two segments, so the rest of the inbound centreline follows the chart's run between them and the outbound lane is offset 4 nm from it. An official set of coordinates (IMO Ships' Routeing / NGA Pub. 172) would replace the approximation. |