Reopening the Strait of Hormuz Is Going to Take Awhile

Summary

Podcast Summary: Big Take — "Reopening the Strait of Hormuz Is Going to Take Awhile"

Release Date: March 19, 2026
Host: David Gura (Bloomberg News)
Guest: Jerry Doyle (Bloomberg Global Defense Editor)

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Episode Overview

This episode of Bloomberg's "Big Take" explores the ongoing crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, a key maritime chokepoint for global oil shipments. The closure of the strait, prompted by military escalation between Iran and Israel and the threat of Iranian mines, has caused significant turmoil in energy markets. Host David Gura and defense editor Jerry Doyle discuss the risks, technical complexities, and potential timelines involved in reopening the strait, as well as the broader geopolitical and economic implications.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Escalation in the Persian Gulf: Context and Immediate Impact

• Recent military strikes between Iran and Israel have directly targeted major energy infrastructure in the region.
• Iran has threatened to attack shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, leading to hundreds of oil tankers stranded and about 40,000 seafarers in limbo.

  “The large majority of the tanker fleet is just sort of still stuck in the Persian Gulf... dealing with a lot of really difficult problems right now.”
  — Jerry Doyle [02:26]

• Consequences: Oil prices surged, with European gas futures rising by as much as 35%.

  “Restoring global supplies and settling markets won't happen until traffic in and out of the Persian Gulf resumes.”
  — David Gura [03:04]

2. The Mine Threat: Uncertainty and Paralysis

• Iran's mine threat: There is no confirmation that Iran has mined the strait, but the mere possibility is enough to halt nearly all transit.
• Reverse Schrodinger’s minefield:

  "It's sort of a reverse Schrodinger minefield. Like, until you find the mines that aren't there, you have to assume they are there."
  — Jerry Doyle [03:54], [05:16]

• The psychological impact: Shipping companies, captains, and insurers require clear guarantees of safety, which are currently lacking from both Iran and international forces.

  "...the number of mines you need to create a viable naval minefield is zero. Until you find the mines that aren't there, you have to assume they are there."
  — Jerry Doyle [05:41]

3. Iranian Capabilities and Tactics

• Conventional capability:

  "In conventional terms, the Iranian navy is just not really there... All of its larger ships have been sunk, damaged, destroyed."
  — Jerry Doyle [04:49]

• Unpredictable & asymmetric threat: Iran still fields swarms of small, fast boats capable of launching missiles, laying mines, and carrying out attacks.

4. The Painstaking Process of Mine Clearing

• Detection and removal: Militaries use specialized ships, sonar, divers, and now unmanned vehicles to detect and clear mines. The U.S. Navy's shift away from traditional minesweepers creates further complication and untested risk in the current crisis.

  "You're doing something you haven't done before in these types of circumstances... if you make a mistake, extremely bad consequences can result."
  — Jerry Doyle [09:57]

• Mine clearance is "painstaking," risky, and must often be performed within range of Iranian shore-based missiles.

  "It's painstaking. You have slow-moving surface vessels that are operating within range of the enemy and that makes them much easier targets."
  — Jerry Doyle [10:30]

5. Timeline for Reopening the Strait

• The time required to clear the strait depends on the number and distribution of mines, the area to be swept, and the intensity of Iranian opposition.
• Jerry Doyle’s estimate:

  "Maybe many days, maybe weeks. It really depends on how heavily mined it is, how big of an area they want to make sure is safe, and what kind of opposition they face."
  — Jerry Doyle [13:59]

6. Limits of Allied Assistance

• Allies could “share some of the risk” but would not significantly speed up the process since they possess similar capabilities to the U.S. Navy.

• “It’s difficult to see what having allied ships in the area would do operationally besides offload some of the risk of clearing the mines.”
  — Jerry Doyle [14:47]

7. Economic and Political Stakes

• Strait's significance: Roughly 20% of global oil supply typically passes through.
• Wider impact:

  "Removing that supply... just adds to supply pressure and the reserves that are being released are not going to be able to be released at a volume that matches the amount of oil that is being cut off by the strait closure."
  — Jerry Doyle [15:37]

• Sustained high oil prices will intensify global economic pain and heighten political pressure—especially in the U.S.—to resolve the conflict.

8. Strategy and Uncertainty in the War

• Iran's strategy is to maximize leverage via disruption of global oil, as this is their strongest remaining tactic.
• The lack of a clear public U.S. objective complicates both domestic support and global diplomatic consensus.

  “From the US perspective...they're suffering economic pain and hardship...without necessarily a clear goal...If we don’t know precisely what that goal is, it’s hard to calibrate.”
  — Jerry Doyle [16:52]

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Memorable Quotes

• On the uncertainty and risk of minefields:
  "It's sort of a reverse Schrodinger minefield. Like, until you find the mines that aren't there, you have to assume they are there."
  — Jerry Doyle [03:54], [05:41]

• On the challenges of mine-clearing in conflict:
  "You have slow-moving surface vessels that are operating within range of the enemy and that makes them much easier targets. In a constrained area like the Strait of Hormuz, it's even more dangerous."
  — Jerry Doyle [10:30]

• On the economic impact:
  "All the prices for those things start to go up too. And the higher oil prices get, and the longer they stay high, the more intense those pressures are going to be, sort of inflicting quite a bit of pain and disruption into the global economy."
  — Jerry Doyle [15:37]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:46] — Initial strikes, escalation, and impact on global markets.
• [02:26] — Tankers stuck, daily realities for seafarers.
• [03:54] — The psychological and operational paralysis from potential mines.
• [04:49] — Current state of the Iranian navy and its asymmetric capabilities.
• [07:37] — Detailed explanation of the mine clearing process.
• [09:57] — Technical complications of new U.S. Navy mine-clearing technology.
• [10:30] — Riskiness of clearing mines during active hostilities.
• [13:59] — Timelines for reopening the strait.
• [15:37] — Economic consequences and broader global ramifications.
• [16:52] — Strategic uncertainty and implications for the continuation and resolution of the conflict.

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Tone and Language

The conversation, while technical and analytical, conveys a sense of urgency, gravity, and uncertainty reflecting the real risks to both global commerce and personnel. Jerry Doyle provides clear-eyed, occasionally wry commentary (“reverse Schrodinger minefield”), and David Gura steers the discussion toward concrete takeaways and roadblocks ahead.

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Summary Use:
This episode is vital for anyone seeking clear insight into how the Strait of Hormuz crisis could impact the global economy, oil markets, and the geopolitics of the Middle East. It lays out both the on-the-ground complexities and the broader stakes of the ongoing war, providing context that goes far beyond daily headlines.

Transcript

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[Bloomberg Announcer]

Israeli strikes on major gas hubs jolted global markets. Hours after Israel carried out a strike on a key gas field in Iran, Iran retaliated.

[David Gura]

Iran then taking aim at the world's largest liquefied natural gas terminal in Qatar.

[Bloomberg Announcer]

A military spokesperson says that the country's response is not over yet.

[David Gura]

Just about three weeks into the Iran war, attacks are escalating on vital parts of the Middle East's energy infrastructure. Iran has also threatened to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passageway that in normal times is the gateway for one fifth of the oil sold on global markets. Hundreds of tankers are now stranded, waiting to get through.

[Jerry Doyle]

The large majority of the tanker fleet is just sort of still stuck in the Persian Gulf and sort of dealing with a lot of really difficult problems right now.

[David Gura]

Jerry Doyle is Bloomberg's global defense editor. He says these ships, with an estimated 40,000 seafarers aboard, are at the center of a crisis with global reverberations.

[Jerry Doyle]

Obviously, you know, folks are living aboard a ship with no particular End date when they might be able to get off of it. There's always the threat of missiles. They can see oil installation burning on shore. You know, GPS is scrambled and jammed, so that makes navigation more difficult.

[David Gura]

The regional upheaval sent oil prices up sharply on Thursday. European gas futures soared as much as 35%. But restoring global supplies and settling markets won't happen until traffic in and out of the Persian Gulf resumes. The cost of insuring one of these ships for this voyage has gone up fivefold. A few ships have been able to get through the Strait of Hormuz, apparently with Tehran's blessing. But ships without that run the risk of attack. And then there's concern about mines. UK Defense Secretary John Healy has told reporters that it's clearer and clearer that the Iranians may have started mining in the strait. U.S. defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said the U.S. has no clear evidence of that. But just the possibility that Iran has laid mines in the strait, Jerry says, makes passage all but impossible.

[Jerry Doyle]

It's sort of a reverse Schrodinger minefield. Like, until you find the mines that aren't there, you have to assume they are there.

[David Gura]

I'm David Gura, and this is the big take from Bloomberg News today on the show. As the consequences mount of the Strait of Hormuz being closed, the very real risks of navigating this crucial waterway, including the potential of mines, how the US and other countries are trying to figure out if those explosives are there and what it would take and how long it would take to remove them if there are. One of the White House's stated goals for the Iran war is to annihilate the Iranian navy. I asked Bloomberg Global Defense editor Jerry Doyle what capability the Iranian navy still has after more than two weeks of fighting and what problems that poses for the Strait of Hormuz.

[Jerry Doyle]

I mean, in conventional terms, the Iranian navy is just not really there. It doesn't have much in terms of a surface fleet at the moment. All of its larger ships have been sunk, damaged, destroyed. What it does have left, again in some unquantifiable number is a lot of these small speedboats which can navigate an area like this strait pretty easily, which can put out from shore or hidden locations pretty easily and can carry some nasty stuff on board, including missiles, anti ship mines, and even explosive charges themselves.

[David Gura]

So walk us through, if you could, the ways in which Iran could target ships passing through this strait. You've talked about these small boats and what they could do. What are some of the other ways that Iran could target tankers and ships.

[Jerry Doyle]

Well, sea mines are probably the easiest way. They're very easy to distribute. You can place mines in the strait sort of under the guise or with the normal patterns of sort of life in the strait using small boats or traditional commercial vessels called dhows that are ordinarily in the strait anyway. You can push them out from shore if you want. And the issue with mines is that as one expert told me, the number of mines you need to create a viable naval minefield is zero. Until you find the mines that aren't there, you have to assume they are there. Just the threat of a minefield existing in a narrow waterway like that means that it has to be cleared. You sort of have to prove the negative. You have to show that there is nothing there. And that requires a lot of painstaking work. While the ships are conducting that sort of activity, they're in range of all of Iran's shore based weapons, which creates a dangerous situation. So that is kind of the easiest way that Iran can close this trade by either threatening to or actually mining it. And then it sort of becomes an impassable barrier until the mines are cleared.

[David Gura]

I want to linger on this for a minute. That is the kind of psychological power of a shipping company or a captain or an insurance company, just wondering if in fact there are mines in the strait. Could you kind of help us get into the head of each of those individuals, sort of what they would need to know or see to feel comfortable going through the strait at this point, given what you say is kind of the fear of there being mines in these waters?

[Jerry Doyle]

Well, I think what they would need is either assurances from the Iranian government or the Iranian military that their ships would be able to pass safely or guided through perhaps parts of the strait that are not mined or are safe. Or they would need assurances from foreign militaries, from the US Navy, from the Gulf navies, that the strait is safe to transit. It has to be pretty clear assurances either from the party that would potentially mine the strait and know where those weapons were, or the folks who would go through and clear it out.

[David Gura]

Gerry, let's get into the mechanics of, I guess trying to assess if there are mines. Also clearing mines from a body of water like the Strait of Hormuz. How does a military go about doing that?

[Jerry Doyle]

Well, different militaries have different capabilities for it. You can have purpose built ships with often have non magnetic hulls. There may be fiberglass or wood covered in fiberglass, something like that, which allows them to pass through these mined areas a little more safely. And then you use those ships and the sensors on board those ships to spot the mines with sonar or other means of detecting anomalies under the water, magnetic anomalies and things like that. Then once you have those contacts identified, then you can assess whether they are mines or not. They could just be junk on the bottom of the sea. And then once you have what you feel is reliable information about what's a mine and what's not, then you have to go through and disable them. And there's different ways you can do that. You can use a small explosive charge, you can even use divers if you want, although that's obviously very risky. But it's a really painstaking process. Now the US Navy is sort of phasing out those purpose built boats. What it uses is its littoral combat ships, which are these smaller, faster military vessels that are designed to operate in close to shore. And they have a mine clearing sort of module package that they can mount on board the ship. And they use these remotely controlled vehicles, uncrewed undersea vehicles to go scan at some distance from the ship and look for mines using those same tools, the sonars and magnetic anomaly detectors. Then you have to go through again the whole process of clearing the mines that is considered a little bit safer for the ship involved because it doesn't have to be directly in the minefield. But in the case of the Strait of Hormuz, clearing the strait and the waters around it would require the ship, the main ships to still operate within range of Iran anti ship missiles, which makes it a very complicated and fraught process.

[David Gura]

You mentioned the US was phasing out this kind of old minesweeping technology. There were four of these ships in the Middle east that were moved out by the Navy in January. Now we have these new littoral combat ships that haven't really operated in these sorts of conditions before. And I wonder what kind of complications that introduces them having to kind of do this in real time, maybe before they've been tested in doing this.

[Jerry Doyle]

Well, I mean that is the complication. You're doing something you haven't done before in these types of circumstances. And so on the positive side of ledger, you will learn how well things work, you will learn some better practices. But on the negative side, obviously there's a lot of risk, the stakes are pretty high. So if you make a mistake, extremely bad consequences can result.

[David Gura]

That's right where I wanted to go. You're describing a process that is, you could say delicate or risky. Is this work that can be done in the middle of an active conflict.

[Jerry Doyle]

I mean, it can be done. And World War II, for example, it has been done, but in modern warfare it's just not considered a very safe thing to do. It's something you can do if you have to, but it's very, very risky because again, it's painstaking. You have slow moving surface vessels that are operating within range of the enemy and that makes them much easier targets. And in a constrained area like the Strait of Hormuz, it's even more dangerous.

[David Gura]

So how long could it take for the Strait of Hormuz to reopen? That's next.

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[David Gura]

I'd love to turn to the timeline here. If you start with the assumption that there could be mines in the Strait of Hormuz and you need to make sure that there aren't, or you need to clear them, how long is that process likely to take?

[Jerry Doyle]

It depends on how many mines there are and the area of seed that they want to make sure is completely clear, right? Maybe many days, maybe weeks. It really depends on how heavily mined it is, how big of an area they want to make sure is safe, and what kind of opposition they face. If this is a mine clearing operation that's going to take place while Iran is launching missiles from the shore, it will take a very long time.

[David Gura]

We've heard the President of the United States ask allies to help in reopening the Strait. So far, many of those allies have demurred. They're not interested in getting involved. Theoretically, what could they offer the US in this effort? How could that speed along or improve the process by which they would assess where there are mines there and remove them if necessary?

[Jerry Doyle]

Not much, honestly. The US Navy has more or less the same capabilities in these areas that their allies do. Many hands make lighter work, I suppose, but it's not like new or different technology will be brought to the fore. And all of those ships, all of those allied ships would be facing the same threat that the US Would be. So it's difficult to see what having allied ships in the area would do operationally besides sort of offload some of the risk of clearing the mines.

[David Gura]

We have seen oil bouncing around $100 a barrel. This is the pressure on the US to get this strait opened up and traffic moving again more quickly here. What would a sustained closure of the Strait of Hormuz mean for oil prices, for energy prices more broadly? Why is this something that's really applying a lot of pressure on the US at this point in time?

[Jerry Doyle]

Well, something like 20% of the world's oil passes through the strait in normal times. And so removing that supply or making it take much more expensive or convoluted or lengthier time wise routes to get out of the region just adds to supply pressure and the reserves that are being released are not going to be able to be released at a volume that matches the amount of oil that is being cut off by the strait closure. And then, of course, because so many aspects of the global economy rely on oil, rely on fuel, right? For container ships, for aircraft, for your car, all the prices for those things start to go up, too. And the higher oil prices get, and the longer they stay high, the more intense those pressures are going to be, sort of inflicting quite a bit of pain and disruption into the global economy.

[David Gura]

Gerry, I think a lot of us have been trying to figure out if there's a unified rationale for this war. We've heard a lot of things, different things from the president, members of his administration. Now, several weeks into this conflict. I'm curious what you think the role of oil prices is in shaping the direction of this war. And if we were to get higher prices of oil in a sustained way, how that could shape the way that this conflict continues to unfold?

[Jerry Doyle]

Certainly from Iran's perspective, the oil prices and the economic pain that Iran can inflict by keeping the straight closed, damaging oil infrastructure around the region, that's really their one big, maybe their only major card remaining to play. And because they are in an existential fight, they have not seemed to have shown much reluctance to play that card and to inflict that pain. From the US perspective and from the rest of the world's perspective, they're suffering economic pain and hardship and all these things without necessarily a clear goal. And so it's hard to square this idea of, you know, so I'm willing to endure this much pain and hardship in order to have this goal at the end of it. But if we, we don't know precisely what that goal is, it's hard to calibrate. And so that, that's complicating this calculus at the moment, I think. But I do think it's fairly clear that the longer oil prices stay high and the more those costs start to trickle down to ordinary people, especially, you know, consumers in the U.S. the more political pressure there will be on the U.S. to end the war or reach some sort of terms of, you know, a ceasefire or just walk away.

[David Gura]

This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gura. To get more from the Big Take and unlimited access to all of bloomberg.com, subscribe today at the [e-mail] podcastoffer if you like this episode, make sure to follow and review the Big Take wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps people find the show. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.

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