The Strait of Malacca, a 900-kilometer waterway bounded by Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore, provides the shortest sea route from East Asia to the Middle East and Europe. It carries nearly 22% of the world’s maritime trade, including oil and gas shipments from the Middle East to China, Japan, and South Korea.
The Malacca Strait is the largest “oil transit chokepoint” in the world, according to the US Energy Information Administration. In the first half of 2025, about 23.2 million barrels of oil per day were transported through the strait, accounting for 29% of total maritime oil flows.
Concerns have been raised over the security of the Malacca Strait due to its narrowest point in the Phillips Channel of the Singapore Strait, which is only 1.7 miles wide. This creates a natural bottleneck and potential for collisions, grounding, or oil spills. The strait has also been a hotspot for piracy and attacks on merchant vessels.
The strategic importance of the Malacca Strait to Beijing is highlighted by the fact that around 75% of China’s seaborne crude oil imports pass through it from the Middle East and Africa. The Iran crisis has further emphasized concerns about how chokepoints such as the Malacca could be affected if a conflict breaks out in the South China Sea or the Taiwan Strait.
Malaysian authorities have noted that the Malacca Strait is also becoming a hotspot for illegal ship-to-ship transfers, where oil is shifted between tankers at sea to obscure its origin. Officials from Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand have agreed not to collect tolls on ships passing through the strait, ensuring it remains open.