International Maritime Organization warns: Even with naval escorts, tanker safety cannot be guaranteed 100 percent.

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The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has become the most severe global oil supply disruption in history, and efforts to reopen the strait are facing multiple obstacles—The International Maritime Organization warns that naval escorts cannot provide 100% security, Western allies have refused to dispatch troops to assist, and the dense military deployments along Iran’s coastline make escort missions perilous.

Arsenio Dominguez, Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), said in an interview with the Financial Times on Tuesday that even if the escort plan is implemented, the risks to merchant ships and seafarers cannot be eliminated. "It can reduce risk, but risk remains, and merchant ships and seafarers may still be affected," Dominguez said. He described the shipping industry as "collateral damage in a conflict whose root cause has nothing to do with shipping," and expressed serious concern about the food and supplies shortages faced by crews stranded in the Persian Gulf.

Meanwhile, Trump’s efforts with allies to send warships and reopen the strait have achieved little. According to CCTV News, the German Chancellor reaffirmed that Germany will not participate in the Hormuz escort mission. Other key U.S. allies, such as Spain and Italy, also have no plans to dispatch warships to the waterway in the near term, prompting the Trump administration to publicly express strong dissatisfaction. Bryan Clark, a naval operations expert at the Hudson Institute think tank, warned that dense deployments of drones and ballistic missiles along the Iranian coastline make escort missions extremely dangerous.

The market impact is spreading rapidly. Kpler oil analyst Muyu Xu warned that this blockade is "the most severe disruption of oil flow in history; actual oil is disappearing from the global market, which may lead to demand destruction in the coming weeks."

Limits of Escort: Risk Can Be Reduced, Safety Can't Be Guaranteed

As the head of the body setting international shipping rules, Dominguez’s remarks highlighted the fundamental limitations of the escort plan. In his interview with the Financial Times, he pointed out that while naval escorts can reduce exposure to risk to some extent, they cannot provide reliable security for transiting tankers—merchant ships and seafarers will still be exposed to real threats.

The IMO is also deeply concerned about the situation of merchant vessels currently stranded in the Persian Gulf. The crews on these ships are facing food and supply shortages, even though the root of this crisis has nothing to do with the shipping industry itself. Dominguez described the situation of the shipping industry as "collateral damage."

Geographical Dilemma: Iranian Coastline Poses Deadly Threat

Deploying warships into this narrow waterway faces severe tactical challenges. Bryan Clark pointed out in a media interview that the core difficulty lies in the densely deployed Iranian drones and missile launchers along the coast.

"The distance from the shoreline to the transit route is only 3 to 4 miles. Once missile launchers are detected, the missiles can reach targets in just a few minutes," Clark said. "Dealing with these drone and missile launchers in extreme proximity to the Iranian coastline will be the biggest challenge."

This geographic reality means the response window for defense is extremely limited. Any escort fleet will have to operate under multiple threats from drones, sea mines, and shore-to-ship ballistic missiles, making the risk factor extremely high.

Allies Absent: Hard to Form Escort Coalition

The Trump administration’s plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is currently facing obvious resistance from allies. Reports indicate that Germany, Spain, and Italy all have no plans to dispatch warships to the waterway in the near term. The Trump administration has publicly expressed dissatisfaction with allies’ reluctance to help reopen the strait, putting pressure on some long-standing alliances.

Currently, the Strait of Hormuz is threatened by both mines and suicide drones deployed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and the situation remains deadlocked. Without a multilateral escort coalition, the feasibility of the U.S. advancing this plan with its own military power alone is in serious doubt.

Unprecedented Oil Disruption, Energy Shock Spreading Faster

Since the U.S.-Iran conflict erupted three weeks ago, tanker transit activity in the Strait of Hormuz has nearly come to a halt. Data shows that the current average daily oil transit is only about 400,000 barrels—down more than 97% from the pre-blockade daily average of about 14 million barrels.

Kpler analyst Muyu Xu defined this blockade as "the most severe disruption of oil flow in history," and warned that as actual crude oil continues to disappear from the global market, the effects of demand destruction may appear in the coming weeks. The Asian market is feeling the brunt first, with oil prices nearing $150 per barrel; in the U.S., diesel at $5 per gallon has already become a reality.

If the conflict cannot be resolved in the short term, the market worries that this wave of energy shock could further evolve into a global financial market event. The road to returning the Strait of Hormuz to pre-blockade normalcy remains uncertain.

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