Chokepoint
A narrow passage that seaborne trade must use, and whose closure leaves only expensive alternatives.
How it works
Passages such as Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, Suez, Malacca and Panama each carry a share of world trade. What makes them chokepoints is not volume but the absence of substitutes: going around adds days and millions of dollars.
Closure is rarely total. Usually transit counts fall, war-risk insurance rises and owners reroute. That is why a chokepoint is tracked by ships passing, not by price.
Transit data comes from satellite tracking, and first prints are often revised; the same day can read differently in two sources.
Why it matters here
A chokepoint is where geopolitical risk meets the physical world. Whether a conflict passes into the oil price is usually decided here: if transits hold, the headline is noise; if they fall, it is signal. We keep daily transit counts as a separate indicator precisely to make that distinction.