The Strait of Vulnerability: What the Hormuz 2026 Crisis Reveals 

Analysts and decision-makers have been simulating the possible consequences of a prolonged closure for decades, but the military conflict that erupted in March 2026 has highlighted another type of risk that hasn’t received as much attention: the strait’s importance in vital mineral supply chains.

In addition to oil, other commodities such as sulphur, helium, rare earth oxides, and the extremely fragile logistics networks that modern industrial economies depend on, are all part of this crisis. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the closure of the Strait of Hormuz poses “the greatest global energy security threat in history.” The impacts across oil and liquid natural gas (LNG) have made headlines, but there are key supply vulnerabilities in mined materials that are also at play in the current conflict. In this blog, we explore some of the most important mineral and metal supply chain risks to understand as shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains in jeopardy.

Sulphur

The almost total cessation of seaborne sulphur supply from the Middle East has been one of the biggest impacts from the mining industry of all the commodity disruptions brought on by the Hormuz crisis.

The raw material used to make sulphuric acid is sulphur. The hydrometallurgical processing of copper, nickel, cobalt, and lithium requires sulphuric acid. Ore cannot be leached without sulphuric acid, and cathode metal, for example, for copper cathodes, cannot be made without leaching. Approximately 24% of the world’s sulphur is produced in the Middle East, and all of it must cross the Strait of Hormuz. While tanker transits through the strait have decreased by approximately 90% since the start of the conflict, prices have increased by 10 to 15%.

Over 50% of the world’s nickel is produced in Indonesia, which imports about 75% of its sulphur from the Middle East. Some high-pressure acid leach (HPAL) plants only have enough sulphur on hand for one to two months. 90% of the 2 million tonnes of sulphur that the Central African Copperbelt imports each year comes from the Middle East, and 70% of the world’s cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Ivanhoe Mines founder Robert Friedland stated: “…if the disruption lasts longer than 3 weeks, copper oxide operations will have to close as they’ve run out of acid.” He then declared that the Congolese Kamoa-Kakula copper smelter is now making sulphuric acid in an effort to lessen the current circumstances.

An additional complication is competitive pressure from the fertiliser industry. The fertiliser sector accounts for approximately 60% of global sulphuric acid demand, meaning that a sulphur shortage threatens not only mineral processing, but also food security.

Helium and Semiconductors

Iranian drone and missile attacks on Qatar’s Ras Laffan facility on 2 March 2026 forced QatarEnergy to stop producing LNG. The shutdown simultaneously removed about 30% of the world’s helium supply from the market because helium is recovered during the liquification of natural gas. Further damage was caused by strikes on 18 and 19 March 2026, and QatarGas stated that repairs would take years. Spot prices for helium have doubled since the beginning of this crisis.

Helium is particularly essential in the fields of electronics, aerospace, and healthcare. For example, South Korea imports about 65% of its helium from Qatar in order to manufacture memory chips through firms like Samsung or SK Hynix. Demand for helium increased from 6% to 21–25% between 2015 and 2025 due to extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography systems and its role in the production of chips at 3-nanometre nodes or below.

Rare Earths, Defence, and US-China

Before the war on Iran worsened and triggered the 2026 Hormuz Crisis, the rare earth industry was already under a great deal of stress, and the current disruption has only made worsened supply resilience. A number of export control measures aimed at rare earth elements were implemented by Chinese authorities in 2025. However, as a result of diplomatic talks between Washington and Beijing, one side of these restrictions was put on hold until November 2026.

Due to increased security operations in the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz, shipping companies have been forced to reroute ships via the Cape of Good Hope, a much longer route that increases delivery windows for rare earth oxides from Australian mines and Malaysian processing facilities by 10 to 20 days.

Governments and businesses in the West are being pushed to speed up the growth of domestic processing capacity and to get supplies from more than just the US. But the truth is that these kinds of goals can’t be met quickly. For instance, setting up and qualifying new rare earth supply relationships takes a long time, usually 18 to 36 months from the first meeting to operational readiness. For now, production will continue as long as there are enough stockpiles, which leaves a big vulnerability gap that neither policy commitments, nor procurement plans, can truly shorten in the short term.

Conclusion

The 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis should not be interpreted as an exceptional event from which normal conditions will shortly resume. As occurred during the Covid global health pandemic, this crisis has exposed structural vulnerability across multiple critical supply chains, including mineral supply chains. The 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis forces us to confront a hard truth: we do not truly control these supply chains, and we remain dangerously sensitive to abrupt, unpredictable disruptions.

The broader lesson here is that supply chain vulnerability is not determined solely by where rare earths are mined or processed, meaning the best course of action for businesses, investors, and legislators is preparation, rather than panic. To do this, thorough exposure mapping is required, along with and a precise evaluation of the areas where true diversification is not only feasible, but possible, within realistic timeframes.

After witnessing an escalating series of crises that have exposed the fragility of industrial supply chain security, those who act on this intelligence now will be better positioned when, not if, the next disruption occurs.

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