The Last Ship Out of Hormuz: Why the REAL Supply Shock Is About to Hit | Rory Johnston

April 2, 2026·52 min·3 clips

Rory Johnston explains why the worst of the Hormuz supply shock hasn't hit yet — the last ship just arrived.

April 1 is the frame. Demetri Kofinas introduces Rory Johnston as a commodity economist and energy market analyst, then places the conversation inside his running series on the U.S. and Israeli campaign against Iran. The Strait is the pressure point. Kofinas says roughly a quarter of global oil supply moves through Hormuz each day, and that its closure has left energy markets under severe strain. Johnston follows the damage downstream. He separates the visible shock, higher prices for consumers, from the quieter institutional shock that starts when governments try to protect those consumers from market prices. Price caps can soften the blow. Leave them in place too long, though, and countries may fail to pull in the balancing cargoes they need. Then the problem is not just expensive fuel. It is fuel that does not arrive. Subsidies push the crisis upward. Household protection can become a fiscal crisis for the state, and Johnston says the endpoint can include government bankruptcies. Policy then gets very practical, and pretty intrusive. He describes governments bringing back COVID-like tools: mandated work from home for public employees, four-day work weeks, and odd-even driving rules based on license plates. Demand gets managed directly. Without those controls, price alone decides who gets energy, which lands hardest on middle- and lower-income Asian economies. Advanced economies have more room to absorb the hit. Johnston contrasts their lower price elasticity with countries where households and firms cannot pay the same clearing prices. COVID is the working analogy. Work from home began as a temporary fix, then stuck once businesses, workers, and governments reorganized around it. Energy sourcing can move the same way. The excerpt points to Europe's shift from Russian piped natural gas toward Qatari LNG after the war in Ukraine as another example of crisis speeding up substitution. The tone stays grave. Kofinas treats this less like a market update than a look at how an oil shock moves through states, consumers, and political capacity. After the conversation closes, he points listeners to the premium Hidden Forces subscription and the show's wider community.

As heard by us

A sharp energy market briefing on how Hormuz can turn oil scarcity into consumer stress and fiscal pressure.

Hidden Forces frames the closed Strait of Hormuz as a physical supply shock whose full force arrives with a lag, then follows the pressure into energy prices, household budgets, and public finances.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

If Hormuz feels like a distant headline, this is where it stops being abstract and starts being expensive.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Hidden Forces