The threat of Iran laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway through which about 20% of the world's oil supply travels — is raising fresh fears about global oil prices amid the ongoing conflict with the U.S. and Israel.
Already, Tehran's ongoing drone and missile strikes against tankers have reduced the flow of oil to a trickle, according to a report from the International Energy Agency. The U.S. is further concerned that Iran will lay sea mines in the Strait, as it has done in past conflicts. Commercial ship crews fear attack, and maritime underwriters are shying away from insuring vessels that could be hit in the Strait, which connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman.
Loading...
That's caused the price of oil to skyrocket to its highest level in nearly four years, with a surge in prices at the gasoline pump. Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei — the son of the country's previous leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — said Thursday that the Gulf should remain closed amid Tehran's ongoing strikes against tankers. Khamenei's remarks could cause oil prices to spike further.
Meanwhile, President Trump has said that U.S. warships could begin escorting oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz and has successfully pushed for nations to draw on oil reserves in an effort to blunt price increases.
Earlier this week, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright posted on X that the first tanker had been escorted through the Strait by the U.S. Navy. That announcement moved markets, but it turned out to be wrong. It was quickly deleted, and the White House said the claim was incorrect. In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, Wright said that as the person in charge of the department, he took responsibility for the error.
The situation has sent jitters through the maritime insurance industry, causing some insurers to cancel war risk coverage. However, Sir Charles Roxburgh, the chairman of Lloyd's of London, said in a statement that the firm has "confidence in our marine insurance market, which has remained open and continues to support international trade and shipping during this period of heightened risk." He also promised to work with the U.S. and U.K. to "ensure a comprehensive response" to the ongoing situation.
"As long as Iran has drones and missiles and Iran continues to fire them, I think many commercial shippers are going to think it's just too dangerous, even with an escort to pass through the Strait," according to Matthew Kroenig, senior director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council.
Experts say it is still too early to begin such escort operations because Iran's capacity to launch weapons and lay mines has yet to be minimized. That poses a risk in the confined waters of the Persian Gulf. The Strait of Hormuz is only about 20 miles at its narrowest point, and the Gulf itself is only a few hundred miles across at its widest. That makes defending a ship against incoming attacks challenging.
Two incidents from 1988 likely give military planners pause: The first occurred in April 1988. The guided-missile frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts struck an Iranian mine in the Persian Gulf as the vessel was supporting tanker escorts as part of Operation Earnest Will during the Iran-Iraq War. The explosion broke the ship's keel, sending tons of water gushing into the engine room and causing a massive fire that nearly destroyed the ship. More than 60 sailors were injured.
Months later, the guided-missile cruiser USS Vincennes, also operating in the Persian Gulf during escort operations, fired two missiles at Iran Air Flight 655, a civilian airliner that had been misidentified as a military threat. All 290 people aboard the Airbus A300 were killed.
With the addition of Iranian drones and ballistic missiles in the years since, the picture is in some ways even more complicated today than in the late 1980s, according to Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, who commanded a carrier strike group and is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. On the other hand, Montgomery believes Iran's submarine threat has been eliminated and "there's not going to be an Iranian air force coming up or Iranian air defense assets."
What would a convoy escort of ships through the Strait of Hormuz look like? With real-time satellite imagery and combat aircraft flying over the Strait, "I think it would be two tankers with a destroyer transiting at a time," Montgomery says.
Even so, "you can't prevent every ballistic missile, cruise missile or drone attack," says Michael Connell of the Center for Naval Analyses.
"It's easier to defend against a drone than a ballistic missile," Connell acknowledges. "But also, drones are cheaper. So if you have to defend against hundreds and hundreds of drones, that sort of offsets the fact that it's easier to shoot them down."
But the U.S. Navy is also taking the threat from sea mines seriously. This week, U.S. Central Command, which oversees the U.S. Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain, posted a video on X showing the strikes against Iran's navy, including what it says is the destruction of 16 minelaying vessels. But experts who spoke to NPR noted that the kind of cheap, easily deployed contact and magnetic mines in Iran's inventory can be dropped over the stern of virtually any vessel.
Nick Childs, a senior fellow for Naval Forces and Maritime Security at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, says that the U.S. "would probably hope to be able to pounce on any concerted Iranian effort to mine the Gulf." But if Iran was able to lay a large amount of mines, he adds, "these could take weeks or months to clear."
The U.S. does have at least three Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) in the region that are equipped for mine-sweeping operations. These vessels, meant for a variety of missions, have been plagued for years by cost overruns and other structural problems.
Montgomery says that for the White House, the situation in the Gulf presents a delicate trade-off between political and military risk. He tells NPR that the political risk is that the longer the Strait stays closed, the more global and domestic pressure will fall on Trump to do something. But if convoy escort operations begin too quickly, "you could lose a tanker … or an American ship."
Copyright 2026 NPR