What Strait of Hormuz Disruption Could Mean for UK Industry
08 March 2026 | By Ben Falconer
The Strait of Hormuz is one of the most important commodity routes for the global economy.
A large share of the world’s oil and LNG moves through it, along with important industrial and chemical exports from the Gulf. When that route is disrupted, the effects can spread well beyond the region.
On 28 February 2026, maritime risk in and around the Strait of Hormuz rose sharply as the conflict involving Iran, Israel and the US escalated. That day, UKMTO and JMIC warned that the security situation had deteriorated, although no formal closure of the strait had been declared through normal maritime safety channels.
Over the next few days, the disruption deepened and by 1 March, major market coverage was reporting that oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz had started to dry up. By 4th March, UKMTO and JMIC updates were warning of further attacks, severe GPS interference, growing operational risk and increasing pressure on commercial navigation. By 8th March, reported oil shipments through the strait had fallen to about 10 percent of normal levels.
What happens in the Strait of Hormuz has the potential to ripple through the world economy. When traffic through a route this important is disrupted, it can affect the cost and availability of critical input commodities that economies rely on. This article examines the main commodities exposed to that disruption and what the knock on effect could be for UK industry.
To give a sense of the scale, until recently about 20 million barrels of oil a day moved through the strait, roughly one fifth of global petroleum liquids consumption. Around one fifth of global LNG trade also passed along the same route. It is one of the main routes through which energy and industrial inputs reach world markets. This is not a minor shipping lane.
The market reaction over the past week has been immediate. Oil shipments through the strait have fallen sharply, freight risk has risen, insurers have increased premiums, and buyers have had to price in the possibility of tighter supply.
What happens next will depend on which commodities are most exposed, how much supply can still move, and how quickly buyers can find alternatives.
We examine which of those risks is most likely to impact UK industry below, and where the costs could be felt most sharply.
Oil
The International Energy Agency (the intergovernmental body that monitors global energy markets and energy security) estimates that the Strait of Hormuz carried about 20 million barrels of crude oil and oil products a day in 2025. Recent market reporting indicates that shipments through the route have since fallen to a small fraction of that level.
Brent crude has risen to circa 105 dollars a barrel as of 9th March after briefly touching 119.50 dollars intraday, its first move above 100 dollars since 2022.
Earlier market notes had framed 100 dollars as the key risk threshold. That level has now been breached, and current upside scenarios are focused less on whether Brent can reach 100 dollars and more on whether prolonged disruption could keep it above that level or push it materially higher.
Oil should be understood as an input commodity, not simply as a traded good. It sits upstream of transport, freight, aviation, shipping, logistics, petrochemicals and a wide range of industrial processes. Price increases to a core input commodity do not stay confined to the commodity market itself. They pass through into fuel, transport, distribution, manufacturing and, eventually, consumer goods. Oil sits near the base of that chain. When its price rises sharply, the effect can spread through the wider economy.
For the UK, oil exposure is not entirely direct, Britain is not chiefly reliant on Iranian crude and OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) only accounted for 20 percent of UK crude imports. The UK’s larger crude import relationships were with countries such as the US and Norway. However, that does not insulate Britain from an oil shock routed through Hormuz. Oil is priced in a global market, so disruption on a route carrying around 20 million barrels a day can still feed through into fuel, freight and industrial costs in Britain.
Oil is unlikely to be a direct shock to the UK in the sense of a physical shortage caused by the immediate loss of one dominant supply source. It is more likely to arrive as a general market shock.
LNG
The International Energy Agency (the intergovernmental body that monitors global energy markets and energy security) estimates that around one fifth of global LNG trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz. That helps explain why gas prices reacted so sharply once disruption to traffic and production in the Gulf began to escalate.
As of time of writing, European benchmark gas prices have surged more than 40 percent, reaching their highest level since 2023, while ICIS analysis indicated that a more prolonged closure scenario could push the Dutch TTF benchmark above 90 euros per MWh.
As of 9 March, the Dutch TTF gas benchmark is trading at around 61 euro per MWh, compared with roughly 32 euro per MWh before the disruption escalated at the end of February. That rise feeds through into power costs, production costs and, over time, the wider cost base of the economy.
Gas prices have also reacted more sharply than oil because the market is structurally less flexible. Oil can be stored relatively easily in tanks and moved through a large global tanker fleet. LNG is different. Natural gas must first be cooled to around minus 162 degrees Celsius to become liquid, then transported in specialised cryogenic tankers and received at dedicated regasification terminals. Storage capacity is limited and rerouting cargoes requires specific infrastructure. That makes the LNG system slower to adjust when supply routes are disrupted, which is why gas prices often move more aggressively than oil when shipping risk increases.
Gas is also an input commodity with the potential to have rippling effects across the wider economy. It is used in power generation, heating and a wide range of energy intensive industrial processes, including chemicals, glass, metals and ceramics.
Britain is not heavily dependent on Qatar for LNG imports. Norway accounts for 76.2 percent of UK gas imports, while Qatar accountes for only 1.9 percent of total UK gas imports.
Gas nevertheless made up 35 percent of total UK energy demand. That leaves the UK exposed even when the immediate source of supply lies elsewhere, because LNG disruption in the Gulf still tightens the wider global gas market and raises prices across Europe.
Gas is unlikely to hit the UK through an immediate physical loss of supply from one dominant source. The more probable effect is a broader market shock. In practice, that means higher wholesale gas prices, higher electricity and heating costs, and tighter margins for energy intensive industries, even though the physical gas entering the UK system comes largely from Norway or domestic production.
Aluminium
Recent reporting states that the Gulf accounts for nearly 10 percent of global aluminium supply. Aluminium Bahrain has already declared force majeure on some contracts, and market reporting said LME three month aluminium prices climbed to around 3,372 dollars a tonne as the disruption deepened. Analysts then discussed the possibility of even higher prices if the disruption lasted.
Aluminium is used across packaging, transport, engineering and construction. In a UK industry context that means windows, facades, cable, frames, cladding systems, fabricated components, consumer packaging and transport equipment.
Again for the UK, aluminium is much more of a global supply shock. If a region producing close to 10 percent of world supply is disrupted, European buyers still end up paying more. That pressure then moves into manufacturing and parts of the construction supply chain.
Polymers
Polymers are used in packaging, films, plastic pipe, cable insulation, membranes and a wide range of industrial and consumer components.
ICIS based reporting announced 84 percent of Middle East polyethylene capacity depends on the Strait of Hormuz for export access, and that more than 12.5 million tonnes of polyethylene were exported from the region in 2025.
Polymers have not had the same public price attention as oil or gas. Lower export access, more expensive feedstocks and higher freight costs all put upward pressure on resin prices. That in turn affects downstream manufacturing.
Methanol
Methanol is used as a feedstock in chemical manufacturing, including formaldehyde, acetic acid and other industrial products. Disruption here is felt through chemical prices and downstream manufacturing costs.
ICIS reported that Methanex (Canadian methanol producer and supplier) sees 18 to 20 million tonnes a year of Middle East methanol supply constrained by the effective shut in of the Strait of Hormuz.
Methanol prices have moved sharply as the market repriced the risk to a trade that is heavily concentrated in the Middle East.
In China, methanol futures rose more than 6 percent on Iran supply concerns, while Trading Economics showed methanol at 2,573 CNY (Chinese Yuan) per tonne on 6 March, up 15.23 percent over the month.
Fertilizers and industrial chemicals
Urea, ammonia, sulphur and phosphate products are heavily used in food production and parts of industrial chemistry.Their importance to farming is substantial. Nitrogen and phosphate fertilisers underpin close to half of global food production, while the Strait of Hormuz carries about 35 percent of global urea exports and 45 percent of global sulphur exports, both of which are central to modern agriculture.
Argus reported annual Gulf export volumes of about 20.058 million tonnes of sulphur, 17.978 million tonnes of urea and 3.635 million tonnes of ammonia. It warned that disruption in the Strait of Hormuz could affect about 20 to 50 percent of international trade in these markets. In other words, this is not a marginal supply issue. It is a disruption large enough to move global fertiliser and chemical prices.
Urea is one of the most widely used nitrogen fertilisers in the world and is also used in resins and chemical processes. Ammonia is central to fertiliser production and also has uses in refrigeration and chemical manufacturing. Sulphur is used to make sulphuric acid, which then feeds into fertilisers and wider industrial chemistry. Phosphate products matter because they are used in crop nutrition and food production.
Which of these matters most to the UK
Oil is the biggest risk for the whole economy: It affects petrol, diesel, aviation fuel, freight, shipping, haulage and distribution which impacts all consumer good prices.
Gas is the more immediate industrial risk because the price move has been more violent and because industry feels it more directly through power and heat costs. Gas is also harder to store and reroute than oil. LNG has to be liquefied, shipped in specialised tankers and received at dedicated terminals, which makes the market less flexible when disruption hits.
Where the UK sits compared with other countries
The UK is exposed, but it is not among the countries most directly dependent on Hormuz flows. The clearest direct vulnerability sits in Asia. In 2024, China, India and South Korea accounted for 52 percent of all LNG moving through the Strait of Hormuz, which makes them more immediately exposed to disruption in Qatari and Gulf LNG supply than the UK.
The UK sits further down that list because its gas imports are dominated by Norway, which supplied 76.2 percent of UK gas imports in 2024, while Qatar accounted for only 1.9 percent of total UK gas imports. That means Britain is less directly exposed than the large Asian LNG importers, even though it can still be hit hard through higher prices.
Europe is in the middle. It is less directly reliant on Qatar than several Asian economies, but still vulnerable to a global LNG repricing because it remains an import dependent market. Recent reporting suggests countries such as Italy and Germany are more exposed than the UK to a prolonged gas shock through their broader dependence on imported energy and industrial gas demand.
By contrast, the United States is better insulated because it is a large domestic producer and a net exporter of oil and gas. In relative terms, that leaves the UK in a more exposed position than the US, but a less directly exposed position than the main Asian LNG importers.
So the UK sits in an awkward middle position. It is not one of the countries most directly tied to Hormuz for physical supply, but it is still exposed enough to feel the price shock once disruption spreads through oil, gas, freight and industrial inputs.
Conclusion
The UK is not among the countries most directly dependent on Hormuz for physical supply, but that does not leave it insulated.
The Strait of Hormuz influences far more than the flow of goods through one stretch of water. It influences the pricing of energy and other critical inputs across global markets. Once disruption takes hold there, the effect is felt first in oil and gas, then in freight, chemicals, metals and wider industrial costs.
For the UK, the more likely outcome is not a sudden economy wide shortage. It is a broader rise in costs. Some direct exposure does exist in gas and petroleum products, but the larger effect is likely to come through higher energy prices, higher freight and insurance costs, and more expensive inputs across the wider economy.
Oil is the bigger economy wide risk. Gas is the more immediate industrial risk because price movements in that market have been more aggressive and because industry feels them directly through power and heat costs.
This is not just a shipping disruption in the Gulf. It is a disruption to one of the routes through which global commodity prices are formed.
For the UK, the risk lies in the cumulative effect of higher costs moving through the industrial chain.
Sources
U.S. Energy Information Administration, Strait of Hormuz oil flows and LNG flows.
UK Government, Digest of UK Energy Statistics 2025, Chapter 3 oil and oil products and Chapter 4 natural gas.
The Guardian, reporting on current shipment disruption, oil price reaction and UK market response.
Financial Times and related market reporting on gas price reaction and storage vulnerability.
ICIS and ICIS based reporting on gas risk, polyethylene dependence, methanol disruption and wider chemical market exposure.
Argus Media reporting on exposed fertilizer and chemical export volumes.
Market reporting on aluminium disruption and price reaction following force majeure in Bahrain.
Disclaimer: Planex Controls does not support war, violence, or military escalation of any kind and does not take a political position on the conflict discussed in this article. This article is provided for general information only and examines the potential effects of geopolitical disruption on the construction industry, material prices, and the wider UK economy. This article is for general information only and does not constitute financial, investment, or trading advice. Any references to commodity prices, market movements, or possible future impacts are included for context only.
About the author
Written by the team at Planex Controls. We publish opinion pieces and detailed investigative analysis on the construction and engineering industries - bringing to light practices that aren’t right, and breaking complex scenarios down into clear, plain English.
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