[Editor's Note: Adeshina Badejo is a member of the TWA Editorial Board and is the author of other TWA articles.]
Operational focus has always been concentrated on upstream factors such as reservoir quality, well productivity, pressure management, recovery-factor enhancement, and the deployment of technologies that help maximize hydrocarbon recovery efficiently. Traditionally, energy security conversations have also revolved around factors such as reserves, production capacity, pipeline infrastructure, and market demand. But these factors only tell part of the story. As global energy systems grow more interdependent, a less visible, but equally important factor, has moved to the forefront: maritime logistics.
Oil and gas value does not end at the wellhead. As shown in Fig. 1, the energy system transitions from subsurface production to processing, storage, port access, vessels, maritime chokepoints, and finally, customer destinations. This means that energy security is not only a question of reserves or production capacity, but also whether the industry can move products reliably through an increasingly complex maritime network.
A barrel of oil, a cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG), or shipment of refined products is only as reliable as its transportation system. This system includes ports, vessels, shipyards, maritime labor, coastal infrastructure, domestic shipping rules, insurance markets, and global transit chokepoints. For oil and gas leaders, this means maritime logistics is no longer just a transportation issue. It is becoming a strategic risk.
Recent disruptions in global shipping have made this point clearer. The Strait of Hormuz, Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb Strait, Suez Canal, and Panama Canal are no longer just locations on a map (Fig 2). They are strategic variables that can affect energy flows, shipping times, project economics, and customer reliability. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) described major oil transit chokepoints as critical routes for global energy movement because disruption in these areas can delay shipments and increase transportation costs (EIA, 2024a).
For an industry that spends billions of dollars managing subsurface uncertainty, it may be time to give similar attention to maritime uncertainty.
Oil, Gas, and the Maritime Systems That Move Them
The oil and gas industry has an undeniable connection with the sea. Offshore exploration and production depend on supply vessels, crew boats, anchor-handling vessels, subsea construction vessels, floating production systems, and specialized marine contractors. LNG depends on liquefaction terminals, LNG carriers, and port access. Crude oil and refined products depend on tankers, terminals, storage hubs, and coastal distribution systems.
Similarly, onshore production is often connected to maritime systems. Hydrocarbon production in the Permian Basin may eventually move through Gulf Coast infrastructure before reaching global markets. A refinery on the Gulf Coast may depend on marine deliveries of crude or marine exports of refined products. Offshore platforms depend on reliable vessel access for maintenance, equipment, personnel movement, and emergency response.
All of these show the relationship between the oil and gas and maritime industry. This necessitates a change in the focus of the oil and gas industry from “Can we produce the hydrocarbon needed to generate the energy required?” to “Can we move the hydrocarbon needed to generate the energy required reliably, affordably, and responsibly under stress?” This interdependence naturally leads to the issue of chokepoints (Fig. 2).
Energy Chokepoints
Chokepoints are narrow passages along widely used global sea routes through which large volumes of petroleum, LNG, and other liquids that are intended to be traded must pass. Table 1 shows the major chokepoints in the world and the routes connected.
Fig. 3 shows the daily volume of hydrocarbon transported through the world chokepoints over the past 5 years.
Maritime chokepoints are critical to oil and gas operations because they facilitate large volumes of energy trade within narrow routes that are vulnerable to geopolitical conflict, piracy, extreme weather, vessel congestion, infrastructure constraints, and regulatory disruptions. Any disruption at these points can affect shipping routes, freight rates, delivery schedules, and ultimately energy prices. The EIA reported a sharp rise in petroleum traffic around the Cape of Good Hope during the Red Sea disruptions, with crude oil and petroleum product flows reaching 9.2 million B/D in the first 8 months of 2024, up from an average of 6.0 million B/D in 2023 (EIA, 2024a). In a separate analysis, EIA also noted that petroleum liquids moving around the Cape increased by nearly 50% during the first 5 months of 2024, as commercial vessels diverted away from Middle East chokepoints and rerouted around southern Africa (EIA, 2024b).
Researchers at Oxford in 2025 estimated that disruptions at major maritime chokepoints could expose the global economy to about $10.7 billion in direct annual losses, representing roughly 0.04% of global trade. Beyond these direct losses, the world also loses an estimated $3.4 billion each year through higher shipping costs, as freight rates rise when vessels are forced to delay, divert, or reroute (Verschuur et al., 2025). These cost increases are not limited to countries directly connected to the affected chokepoint. They can ripple through global supply chains, increasing transport expenses and ultimately raising consumer prices.
For oil and gas leaders, it is now clear that a maritime route can become a key market variable. If vessels must travel further, cargoes may take longer to arrive, fuel use may increase, insurance costs may rise, and delivery flexibility may decline. In today’s market, these effects can quickly move conversation from logistics departments to executive boardrooms. Chokepoints are therefore not only geographic. They are also operational, commercial, and strategic.
These global vulnerabilities do not stop at international waters. They also shape how individual nations think about their domestic maritime policies, as the United States’ experience with the Jones Act illustrates.
The Jones Act as a Domestic Maritime Policy Case Study
In the US, domestic water transportation is regulated by Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, commonly known as the Jones Act (Kellogg & Sweeney, 2025). The Jones Act requires goods shipped by water between US ports to be carried on vessels that are American-built, owned, crewed, and flagged. It was originally passed after World War I to help ensure that the US maintained a merchant marine fleet capable of supporting national needs during war or emergency.
For the oil and gas industry, the Jones Act is relevant not simply as a legal framework, but as a reminder that energy security depends on maritime capacity. Supporters of the law often emphasize its role in sustaining US maritime jobs, shipbuilding capability, national-security readiness, and a domestic merchant marine. Critics, however, argue that limiting coastal trade to Jones Act-compliant vessels can reduce competition, constrain vessel availability, and increase transportation costs, especially during periods of supply disruption.
Regions such as Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and island territories that are geographically isolated from pipeline infrastructure are structurally dependent on waterborne energy transport. For these markets, vessel availability is a primary determinant of energy supply continuity. Constraints on Jones Act-compliant fleet capacity, therefore, have measurable downstream effects on fuel availability, delivery schedules, and commodity costs.
In response to recent energy supply disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, which is one of the world's most critical maritime chokepoints, waivers have had to be implemented in 2026 for the Jones Act (Cerullo, 2026). This provides a timely and concrete case study in how global shipping vulnerabilities can lead directly into domestic maritime policy decisions.
Domestic maritime policy is, therefore, an integral component of the energy logistics system. For operational and strategic planning purposes, it should be evaluated alongside vessel capacity, shipyard capability, port infrastructure, offshore service demand, emergency response preparedness, and long-term energy security strategy.
Offshore Operations and Logistics
The realization that energy abundance does not always mean equal energy accessibility is arguably one of the most important lessons in the modern-day energy market. For instance, the US may have significant proven and technically recoverable natural gas reserves, but delivering that gas to domestic and global customers depends on the full supply chain. Production must connect to pipelines, pipelines must connect to liquefaction terminals, liquefaction terminals must connect to marine vessels, and those vessels must move through ports and global routes. This makes LNG an example of why maritime logistics must be included in strategic energy discussions.
Offshore operations face a similar reality. At every stage of the project life cycle, offshore energy projects require specialized marine assets. For deepwater developments, subsea tiebacks, floating production systems, and offshore maintenance campaigns, marine availability is central to project execution. A shortage of suitable vessels or delays in marine support can affect project timelines and capital expenditure.
This dependency on maritime infrastructure extends beyond conventional hydrocarbons into the broader energy transition. Emerging carbon capture and storage hubs along the Gulf Coast, offshore CO2 storage concepts, hydrogen export terminals, ammonia supply chains, and offshore wind projects all require some form of marine infrastructure. The same ports, fabrication yards, vessels, and maritime workforce that currently support oil and gas operations are the same assets that will support low-carbon energy systems. Maritime logistics is not only about today’s hydrocarbon supply chain. It is also part of tomorrow’s energy transition infrastructure.
How Oil and Gas Leaders Should View Maritime Logistics
For oil and gas executives, the key lesson is that maritime logistics should no longer be treated as a downstream transportation detail. It is becoming part of strategic energy planning. The ability to produce oil and gas is only one part of the value chain. The ability to move these products reliably, affordably, and with lower exposure to disruption is increasingly just as important. Maritime logistics should be viewed through the following lenses.
- Commercial Performance: Freight rates, vessel availability, insurance costs, port delays, and rerouting decisions can directly influence the cost of crude oil, LNG, and refined products. In a market where margins are often determined by timing, location, and contract structure, logistics can be the determining factor whether a cargo creates value or loses value.
- Project Execution: Offshore developments, LNG terminals, refinery operations, and export facilities all depend on marine assets, port infrastructure, fabrication yards, and specialized contractors. A delay in vessel availability or port access can quickly become a delay in first oil, first gas, cargo delivery, or project cash flow.
- Energy Security: Disruptions at some of the chokepoints show that energy companies must understand their exposure. The same applies domestically, where policies such as the Jones Act, port capacity, vessel availability, and emergency waiver decisions can influence how quickly energy products move between US markets during periods of stress.
- ESG and Emissions: Longer routes, inefficient port operations, and carbon-intensive marine fuels all increase the emissions footprint associated with delivering energy to market. As companies face intensifying scrutiny over the carbon intensity of their products including Scope 3 reporting obligations, maritime logistics will become an increasingly visible component of emissions management, supply-chain transparency, and sustainability commitments.
Company leadership should have a clear understanding of which ports, routes, vessel classes, terminals, and regulatory frameworks are most critical to their business. They should be asking whether their supply chains have enough flexibility to withstand disruption, whether alternative routes have been evaluated, and whether logistics risk is explicitly included in commercial planning and investment decisions.
The oil and gas industry has developed vast knowledge in modeling reservoirs, production profiles, and commodity markets and emission pathways. A similar mindset is now needed for maritime logistics. Companies that understand both the subsurface fundamentals and the sea routes that carry their products to the market will be better positioned to manage uncertainty, protect margins, and deliver energy reliably in an increasingly disrupted world.
Conclusion
The oil and gas industry has always been shaped by geology, technology, markets, and policy. Now, it is also being shaped by maritime resilience. Moving energy reliably through LNG export chains, offshore operations, domestic shipping lanes, and global chokepoints is now as important as producing it.
The Jones Act is one part of this broader conversation, but the issue extends beyond any single regulation. It is about how the energy industry prepares for a world where routes, ports, vessels, weather, geopolitics, and emissions all interact. For industry leaders, the key question is whether their companies are prepared to treat maritime logistics as a strategic part of energy security. The next competitive advantage in oil and gas may not come only from drilling deeper, producing faster, or modeling reservoirs more accurately. It may also come from understanding how energy moves in a world where reliability is increasingly valuable.
Energy security does not end at the wellhead. In many cases, it moves by water.
For Further Reading
Trump Extends Jones Act Waiver for Another 90 Days by M. Cerullo, CBS News.
Impacts of the Jones Act on US Petroleum Markets by R. Kellogg and R. Sweeney, MIT.
Cabotage Sabotage? The Curious Case of the Jones Act by W. Olney, University of Hawai`i at Mānoa Department of Economics.
Fewer Tankers Transit the Red Sea in 2024, EIA.
Red Sea Disruptions Increase Oil Flows Around Cape of Good Hope, EIA.
World Oil Transit Chokepoints, EIA.
Systemic Impacts of Disruptions at Maritime Chokepoints by J. Verschuur, J. Lumma, and J. Hall, University of Oxford.
