energy · Julian Hinz

A Critical-Inputs Playbook: What the Strait of Hormuz Tells Europe

Julian Hinz — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Europe imports only about 4% of its crude oil and 7% of its liquefied natural gas through the Strait of Hormuz. By those measures, the strait’s near-closure since the outbreak of war in February 2026 should barely register in European macro forecasts. Yet the European Central Bank cut its 2026 growth projection by 0.3 percentage points and raised its inflation projection by 0.7 points.

The column traces this discrepancy to a tug-of-war between a bottleneck amplifier and a substitution attenuator: while Europe’s post-2022 energy diversification cushions the direct shock, vulnerabilities persist in critical inputs such as nitrogen fertilizers, jet fuel and petrochemicals, where substitution is slow or nonexistent. What Europe needs is not another energy-crisis playbook but a critical-inputs playbook — serious monitoring and stress testing, strategic reserves for the few inputs that matter most, and a trade and industrial policy that treats chokepoint exposure as a primary parameter.

The Cost of Closing the Strait of Hormuz: Energy Bottlenecks and Global Food Security

Julian Hinz — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The brief analyzes a closure of the Strait of Hormuz as a global energy bottleneck that propagates through chemicals, fertilizer production, and food prices. Because the channel carries a large share of global oil and liquefied natural gas, the shock creates especially severe losses for energy- and fertilizer-import-dependent developing countries.

Standard trade models understate these effects when they miss the bottleneck mechanism. The distributional burden is highly uneven: aggregate global costs may be moderate, but vulnerable economies in South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East face much larger welfare losses and food security risks.

Navigating Trade Restrictions

Vasily Astrov — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This report focuses on Russia’s adaptation in its commodity exports during 2023, amidst ongoing international sanctions. It examines the shifts in export and maritime shipping patterns, emphasizing coal, crude oil, and liquefied natural gas, and their redirection towards alternative, non-sanctioning markets. The analysis details Russia’s efforts to maintain its commodity exports by leveraging new maritime routes and - possibly - spoofing Automatic Identification System (AIS) signals to avoid detection of ship-to-ship transfers of oil.