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For fifty-five days this spring,

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not one loaded gas carrier
crossed the Strait of Hormuz,

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the channel carrying
a fifth of the world's gas.

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Twenty million barrels a day
passed here before the war,

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about a quarter of all the oil
that ever travels by sea.

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The strait is twenty-nine
nautical miles across,

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but the marked lanes that ships are
supposed to use are only two miles wide.

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On the twenty-eighth of February,
Iranian forces told shipping to stop,

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and traffic fell from about one hundred
thirty-five vessels a day to two.

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Almost none of it was bound for Europe,

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which took just four
percent of these flows,

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while China and India
together took forty-four.

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Qatar sends ninety-three percent
of its gas through this one channel,

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and for gas there is no
pipeline around it at all.

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For oil there are bypass pipelines,

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but their spare capacity
tops out near five million

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barrels a day against the twenty that

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used to pass.

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Behind the closed water,

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six thousand seafarers sat
on five hundred anchored ships,

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waiting on owners, navies
and insurers to agree on something.

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Iran wants three hundred billion
dollars in reparations first,

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and its parliament is weighing a toll
of up to seven percent of cargo value.

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The toll already working
is written by underwriters,

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taking a hundred million
dollar tanker from two hundred

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fifty thousand dollars
a crossing to ten million.

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On the twenty-eighth of August,

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American commanders declared
the mines cleared and the lanes open,

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and shipping data still showed
about ten crossings a day.

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Who closes a strait, when the mines
are cleared and the lanes are open,

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and the only barrier left
is a number printed on paper.