[2][3] A third of the world's liquefied natural gas and almost 25% of total global oil consumption passes through the strait, making it a highly important strategic location for international trade.

At the upper end of this gulf there is a market-town designated by law called Apologus, situated near Charaex Spasini and the River Euphrates.In the 10th–17th centuries AD, the Kingdom of Ormus, which seems to have given the strait its name, was located here.

Scholars, historians and linguists derive the name "Ormuz" from the local Persian word هورمغ Hur-mogh meaning date palm.

[7] To traverse the Strait, ships pass through the territorial waters of Iran and Oman under the transit passage provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Upon ratifying UNCLOS in August 1989, Oman submitted declarations confirming its 1981 royal decree that only innocent passage is permitted through its territorial sea.

[11] Oman has a radar site Link Quality Indicator (LQI)[clarification needed] to monitor the TSS in the Strait of Hormuz.

[12] According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 2011, an average of 14 tankers per day passed out of the Persian Gulf through the Strait carrying 17 million barrels (2,700,000 m3) of crude oil.

The report stated that more than 85% of these crude oil exports went to Asian markets, with Japan, India, South Korea and China the largest destinations.

On 3 July 1988, 290 people were killed when an Iran Air Airbus A300 was shot down over the strait by the United States Navy guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes (CG-49) when it was wrongly identified as a jet fighter.

On 8 January 2007, the nuclear submarine USS Newport News, traveling submerged, struck MV Mogamigawa, a 300,000-ton Japanese-flagged very large crude tanker, south of the strait.

The Navy's regional commander, Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, said the Iranians had "neither anti-ship missiles nor torpedoes" and he "wouldn't characterize the posture of the US 5th Fleet as afraid of these small boats".

"[19] In the last week of July 2008, in the Operation Brimstone,[20] dozens of U.S. and foreign naval ships came to undergo joint exercises for possible military activity in the shallow waters off the coast of Iran.

[26] The U.S. Navy spokesman Commander Bill Speaks quickly responded that deployment of U.S. military assets would continue as has been the custom stating: "The U.S. Navy operates under international maritime conventions to maintain a constant state of high vigilance in order to ensure the continued, safe flow of maritime traffic in waterways critical to global commerce.

[citation needed] Pressure on prices reflected a combination of uncertainty driven further by China's recent response – reducing oil January 2012 purchases from Iran by 50% compared to those made in 2011.

[32] The United States had previously announced its intention to warn Iran that closing the Strait of Hormuz is a "red line" that would provoke an American response.

[33] Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this past weekend that the United States would "take action and re-open the strait", which could be accomplished only by military means, including minesweepers, warship escorts and potentially airstrikes.

A senior member of Iran's parliament said that the Islamic Republic would close the entry point to the Persian Gulf if new sanctions block its oil exports.

[37] "If any disruption happens regarding the sale of Iranian oil, the Strait of Hormuz will definitely be closed," Mohammad Kossari, deputy head of parliament's foreign affairs and national security committee, told the semi-official Fars News Agency.

According to the officials, the anti-ship Fateh-110 Mod 3 flew over 100 miles on a flight path over the Strait of Hormuz to a test range in the Iranian desert.

[43] Aljazeera quoted Major-General Mohammad Baqeri of the Iranian Armed Forces, stating "We are not after closing the Strait of Hormuz but if the hostility of the enemies increases, we will be able to do so".

[51] On 4 January 2021, the Tasnim News Agency reported that a South Korea-flagged oil vessel headed from Saudi Arabia to the United Arab Emirates was seized for allegedly causing pollution violations.

The ship, Hankuk Chemi, was headed to the UAE port Fujairah after loading oil from Jubail, Saudi Arabia on 2 January 2021, as per ship-tracking data gathered by Bloomberg.

[52] On 2 June 2021, the IRIS Kharg, a modified Ol-class replenishment oiler of the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy, sank in the Strait of Hormuz after catching fire.

[56] A 2008 article in International Security contended that Iran could seal off or impede traffic in the Strait for a month, and an attempt by the U.S. to reopen it would be likely to escalate the conflict.

[59][60] Captain John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, was quoted in a December 2011 Reuters article: "Efforts to increase tension in that part of the world are unhelpful and counter-productive.

In the same article, Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert at the Brookings Institution, said, "The expectation is that the U.S. military could address any Iranian threat relatively quickly.

"[61] General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in January 2012 that Iran "has invested in capabilities that could, in fact, for a period of time block the Strait of Hormuz."

[68] In a July 2012 Foreign Policy article, Gal Luft compared Iran and the Strait of Hormuz to the Ottoman Empire and the Dardanelles, a choke point for shipments of Russian grain a century ago.

He indicated that tensions involving the Strait of Hormuz are leading those currently dependent on shipments from the Persian Gulf to find alternative shipping capabilities.