Hormuz: the other vulnerability.

The cover story

Hormuz: when the backup route becomes vulnerable too

Announced Hormuz talks, a Saudi pipeline shutdown and then a postponed diplomatic meeting: the week's events expose the fragility of alternative routes. A passage can remain technically accessible while becoming commercially unworkable. An overland route can bypass a strait without protecting the terminal at its end. The common thread is not that every alternative has vanished, but that none can readily promise the continuity needed to commit a cargo.123678