Oil chokepoints around the world – graphic

In this Jan. 19, 2012 photo, fishing boats are seen in front of oil tankers on the Persian Gulf waters, south of the Strait of Hormuz, offshore the town of Ras Al Khaimah in United Arab Emirates. Even as sanctions squeeze Iran ever tighter, there's one clandestine route that remains open for business: A short sea corridor connecting a rocky nub of Oman with the Iranian coast about 35 miles (60 kilometers) across the Gulf. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)Show less

With the conflict erupting in Yemen, the oil market perceives the major risk to be the possibility that fighting spills over and affects the Bab Al Mandeb Strait off Yemen’s south-west coast. It is one of the world’s oil trade chokepoints, through which flows about 4 million barrels a day of crude, representing about 7 per cent of global seaborne oil trade.