Global miners reliant on fuels and chemicals that are now tied up in the Strait of Hormuz say costs are rising as the war drags on, and consumers — from AI data centers to the U.S. military — are increasingly vulnerable.
“The folks in our industry are calling it the ‘straits of hormones’ instead of Hormuz because the battle is being waged, ‘is it open, is it closed,’ changes by the announcement,” Oskar Lewnowski, CEO of the mining investment firm Orion Resource Partners, told CNBC on Friday. The shifting landscape, he said, “makes it very difficult to plan for production runs that are necessarily very long.”
Commercial traffic has been largely halted at the crucial conduit since the U.S.-Israel war against Iran began more than two months ago. Even since the ceasefire agreed to by the United States and Iran last month, Iran has fired on some vessels that tried to sail through, leaving many commercial ships unwilling to take the gamble. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday announced a new operation to reopen the Strait of Hormuz that he said will protect ships, although the Pentagon did not provide details.
Both sides are focused on control of the strait because it remains vital for moving a large share of the world’s oil supplies. But the ongoing conflict is also tying up critical inputs for the mining sector. Of particular interest is the supply of sulfuric acid, which is widely used in the mining of copper, uranium, nickel, zinc and rare earth elements.
