Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI:The Strait of Hormuz was back at the centre of the world economy on Tuesday. A fresh escalation between the United States and Iran — reported strikes and moves to restrict shipping through the channel that carries roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and gas — pushed Brent crude above $85 a barrel, its highest in nearly a month. For an economy that imports most of the oil it burns, the question is never whether the shock is felt, but how well the cushions hold.
On Tuesday’s evidence, they bent without breaking. India now draws crude from around 40 nations, and roughly 70% of its imports travel routes other than Hormuz — a deliberate reordering from the days when nearly half came through the strait. Refiners have built inventory and diversified sourcing across Russia, the United States, West Africa and Latin America, so that fuel kept flowing and pumps stayed open even as the global price jumped and the rupee softened on the risk premium.
Energy security is not built in a crisis; it is banked before one. India is again spending buffers it quietly accumulated over ten years — and they are holding.
The exposure is real and worth stating plainly. A meaningful share of India’s LPG and LNG has historically moved through Hormuz, and the strategic petroleum reserves — about 5.33 million tonnes, or nine to ten days of cover — are modest against the 90-day benchmark bodies like the International Energy Agency hold up. A prolonged disruption would test the system, and no amount of preparation makes an import-dependent economy immune to a global price spike.
The constructive read is that a decade of quiet preparation is paying off precisely when it is needed: through the day’s turbulence, Indian retail fuel prices moved far less than the global benchmark, and supply stayed steady. The way forward is to press the advantage — expanding strategic reserves toward international norms, deepening supplier diversity, and accelerating the shift to renewables, biofuels and electric mobility that structurally lightens the oil bill — while India uses its diplomatic weight to press for calm on a waterway the whole of Asia depends on.
