The losses are no longer hypothetical
Four months into the crisis, the Strait of Hormuz is no longer a geopolitical risk. It is a live damages event. Ship crossings fell sharply from pre-war norms of roughly 125-140 a day, around one-fifth of global oil and LNG normally moves through the Strait, and the cost of shipping crude from the Middle East to China rose from roughly $130,000 a day before the crisis to more than $500,000 at the peak.1
The shock has not stopped at energy. News reporting has traced the same disruption through fertiliser, plastics, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, container logistics and construction inputs. What began as a shipping interruption has become a contract-performance problem, a pricing problem and, increasingly, a recovery problem.2
The disputes roadmap is now evident. Shipping and cargo disputes are first. Energy and commodity disputes follow. Construction claims are emerging in the middle through procurement delay and cost escalation. Insurance, sanctions and recovery disputes sit on the tail.
In each area, the decisive issue will not be the existence of disruption. It will be proof of causation, reasonableness and quantum.
Across which sectors are disputes now crystallising?
A. Shipping and cargo
The first disputes to materialise are in shipping. One live case already illustrates the point: Mercuria has sued the Baltic Exchange in London over the TD3C benchmark, alleging that rate designed to reflect Gulf-to-China tanker freight became unrepresentative during the Hormuz disruption and caused losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars.3 At the same time, one major container line has said 14 of its ships were originally stranded in the Gulf, one vessel was attacked and eight crew were injured, and the company expects around $300 million of added first-half cost from rerouting by road and rail.4 5
A second pattern is emerging in physical oil trading. Traders are already caught in a web of disputes potentially worth many billions of dollars over contracted shipments that were never delivered. That is exactly what one would expect after a supply shock of this scale: demurrage and detention claims, alternate discharge disputes, benchmark and freight-index disputes, cargo non-delivery claims, and arguments over whether refusal to sail or rerouting was reasonable at the time.6
This context requires a broader mix of experts. Master mariners will be needed on route safety and navigational reasonableness; maritime security specialists on the war-risk environment; tanker-market and chartering experts on freight, demurrage and market practice; port operations experts on terminal access and safe-port issues; AIS/GNSS specialists on actual vessel movement, waiting time and interference; marine insurance specialists on premium, exclusions and cover; sanctions experts on payment and compliance risk; cargo and damage experts on deterioration, contamination and physical loss; and forensic quantum experts on freight loss, deviation cost and consequential trading loss.
Benchmark disputes require a different category again: not simply freight-market practitioners, but benchmark and index-methodology specialists able to address whether an administrator followed its methodology, whether inputs remained valid, and whether an index continued to represent the market it was intended to measure under stressed conditions.
B. Energy and commodities
The second wave sits in energy and commodity contracts. Iraq’s southern oil output fell by about 80%, from roughly 4.3 million barrels per day before the war to around 800,000 barrels per day as exports were blocked and storage filled.7 In LNG, QatarEnergy said it needed to declare force majeure on affected long-term contracts;8 one major LNG trader then passed force majeure down to its own clients,9 while another large energy major publicly said it would honour its LNG contracts and absorb the shock through portfolio flexibility.10 Those diverging positions are the dispute in miniature: was performance truly prevented, or merely harder and more expensive?
The damages are already visible across adjacent markets. Middle East urea export prices spiked by around 40% in the immediate aftermath of the war and U.S. fertiliser prices rose 32%, but that spike later retraced as shipments resumed and supply adjusted. Petrochemicals and polymers have shown a different profile, with flows through Hormuz being choked, plastic and polymer prices reached roughly four-year highs, and some producers passed through increases of up to 50%.11 12
These cases need oil, LNG and commodity-trading experts who can address substitute cargo availability, nominations, allocation and mitigation; derivatives and hedging experts who can distinguish physical non-performance from paper loss; and quantum experts who can separate replacement cost, market loss and downstream pass-through.
C. Construction
Construction is not peripheral to Hormuz for the Gulf. It sits close to the centre of the region’s non-oil growth model. Across the wider GCC, the projects market has been running at around US$164 billion a year over the last decade.13
For Gulf projects, the first consequence of Hormuz is procurement delays: longer lead times, higher freight and insurance, and much narrower room for mitigation. The region remains heavily exposed to imported long-lead mechanical, electrical and process equipment.
The second major problem is cost escalation. Specialist market analysis points to the same pressure across steel, aluminium, cement, copper and polymer-based products, driven by higher energy inputs, freight, insurance and disrupted Gulf aluminium and petrochemical flows.14 15 16
In disputes terms, the shipping shock has turned into subcontractor pass-through claims and EPC contractors arguing that fixed-price contracts have been pushed out of economic balance.
These cases need delay experts to demonstrate that late procurement affected the critical path and assess mitigation measures, and quantum experts to price prolongation and escalation. As in Covid, broad references to “global disruption” will not be enough. Parties will need evidence linking the Strait disruption to each project and specific losses.
D. Insurance and recovery
The final layer is recovery. By early March, marine insurers had begun cancelling war-risk cover for vessels in the Gulf, after attacks had damaged tankers, killed seafarers and stranded around 150 ships. Within days, war-risk premiums rose by more than 1,000% in some cases, from about 0.25% of hull value to as high as 3%. 17
The insurance issues are also widening. Beyond premium spikes and cover withdrawal, the market is increasingly focused on blocking and trapping exposure and, on some wordings, the possibility of longer-tail total-loss style claims if vessels remain unable to leave the Gulf for the required period.
At the same time, these insurance questions are closely tied to charterparty war-clause disputes: whether owners may refuse Hormuz transit, whether charterers must nominate an alternative safe route or port, who bears additional war-risk premium, crew bonus, deviation cost and extra bunkers, and whether waiting time falls into off-hire, laytime or demurrage.
Even if the present negotiation window leads to a prolonged stand-off rather than renewed hostilities, the disputes pipeline is unlikely to disappear. It is more likely to shift towards routing reasonableness, compliance risk, premium allocation and recovery.
These disputes need marine-insurance experts on hull, cargo and war-risk allocation; sanctions and maritime-compliance experts on payments, routing and red-flag interpretation; trade-finance experts on blocked payments and documentary compliance; and forensic accountants on business interruption, contingent loss and recovery methodology.
Where clarity will matter most
Hormuz is unfolding as a sequence of disputes: shipping and cargo first; energy and commodities next; construction through procurement delay and cost escalation; and insurance and recovery on the longer tail. The losses are already visible. Independent expert analysis will be central to explaining causation, assessing mitigation and quantifying loss.
1 Reuters, Strain grows on shipping industry with vessels stuck inside Hormuz, dated 3 June 2026
2 APNews, Supply chain disruptions from the Iran war could raise prices for drugs, electronics and more, dated 4 March 2026 [https://apnews.com/article/iran-war-supply-chain-disruption-8f262bb210710b7509221a3dccf787c9].
3 Reuters, Trader Mercuria sues Baltic Exchange over Hormuz freight losses, court filing shows, dated 1 May 2026 [https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/trader-mercuria-sues-baltic-exchange-over-hormuz-freight-losses-court-filing-2026-05-01].
4 Reuters, CMA CGM chief says ‘unwise’ to assume Hormuz will return to pre-war situation, dated 9 June 2026
5 Reuters, One CMA CGM vessel hit in Strait of Hormuz, another exits Gulf, dated 6 May 2026
[https://www.reuters.com/world/cma-cgm-container-ship-hit-strait-hormuz-injuring-crew-2026-05-06].
6 Bloomberg News, Oil Trader CFOs Say Hormuz Closure Driving Wave of Disputes (1), dated 22 April 2026 [https://news.bloombergtax.com/international-trade/oil-trader-cfos-say-hormuz-closure-driving-wave-of-disputes-1].
7 Reuters, Iraq oil output further plunges as storage fills, Hormuz exports blocked by conflict, dated 25 March 2026 [https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/iraq-oil-output-further-plunges-storage-fills-hormuz-exports-blocked-by-conflict-2026-03-25].
8 Reuters, QatarEnergy says it needs to declare force majeure on some LNG contracts, dated 24 March 2026 [https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/qatarenergy-declares-force-majeure-lng-contracts-2026-03-24]. 9 Reuters, Shell declares force majeure to clients who buy Qatari LNG, sources say, dated 11 March 2026
10 Reuters, TotalEnergies to honour all LNG contracts despite Qatar outages, dated 26 March 2026
11 Reuters, How does the Iran war affect fertiliser supplies, prices and food security?, dated 17 March 2026
12 Reuters, Iran war chokes petrochemical supply, sends plastic prices soaring, dated 26 March 2026
13 Reuters, UAE’s real GDP grows 6.2% in 2025 compared to 2024, state news agency says, dated 30 May 2026
14 Reuters, Factories face soaring costs as Iran war causes supply shocks, dated 1 June 2026
[https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/global-economy-asias-factory-output-expands-firms-stockpile-buffers-over-iran-2026-06-01].
15 Reuters, Middle East shipping disruptions propel aluminium to four-year highs, dated 9 March 2026
16 Reuters, Heidelberg Materials expects rising energy costs due to Iran war, dated 6 May 2026
17 Reuters, Maritime insurance premiums surge as Iran conflict widens, dated 6 March 2026
