Strait of Hormuz and drone threats to global shipping

The Strait of Hormuz is rattling global trade, but the waterway is just one example of a vital maritime corridor becoming a frontline, in a new age of drones and missiles targeting economic lifelines.

From the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea to the Black Sea, attacks on commercial vessels have disrupted trade, raised insurance and freight costs, and forced shipping companies to reconsider routes once treated as dependable.

The stakes are high: roughly 80% of global merchandise trade by volume moves by sea. Disrupting even one major route can delay cargo, tighten supplies and drive up prices for energy, food and consumer goods thousands of miles away.

“We have a new chokepoint and a new war,” David Roche, president and global strategist at Quantum Strategy, wrote in a July report, referring to the Sea of Azov, where Ukrainian drones have been striking Russian tankers, and the Black Sea.

Roche described this fighting as the first maritime offensive conducted almost entirely with drones, supplemented by missiles. Such weapons give smaller military forces a cheaper means of threatening ships, ports and other infrastructure whose disruption carries a huge economic cost.

Quantum estimates that about 25% of Russia’s grain exports and 25% to 30% of its Black Sea oil exports could be disrupted. Russia grows more than a fifth of internationally traded wheat, magnifying the potential consequences for global food prices.

Yevgeniya Gaber, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, said Russia’s move earlier this month to suspend shipping through the Kerch Strait, which connects the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, has effectively shut down a vital maritime corridor.

“Maritime transport through the Sea of Azov had become an increasingly important alternative to the land corridor connecting Russia with occupied Crimea,” Gaber told CNBC by email.

“The economic implications are equally important,” Gaber said, adding that the Sea of Azov has been used not only to transport sanctioned crude oil and petroleum products but also grain, coal and steel. 

Gaber said Ukraine’s efforts to exploit Russia’s maritime and economic weaknesses constitute “one of the most significant blows to military and commercial fleets” since World War II. Indeed, Ukraine says it has degraded roughly one-third of Russia’s Black Sea fleet since 2022.