ADNOC Ships Through Hormuz With Transponders Off as U.S. Sodium-Ion Plant Targets China's Battery Lead
The Hormuz blockade, past five months and erasing 100 million barrels weekly, is accelerating the U.S.-China competition for sodium-ion battery supply chains.
CSIS warned on Wednesday (2026-08-05) that the latest rounds of U.S.-Iran strikes show the Strait of Hormuz dispute is far from resolved. The conflict, the analysis said, is on course to reshape global LNG markets. ICE Brent crude front-month stood at $89.30 per barrel as of Tuesday (2026-08-11), while JKM, the Asian LNG benchmark, held at $21.18/MMBtu, both levels reflecting nearly six months of supply disruption with no diplomatic resolution in view.7
Iran shut the strait to foreign shipping in late February 2026, cutting off a waterway that had previously carried around 20% of global oil. More than 1 billion barrels have been lost since the closure, ADNOC CEO Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber said on Wednesday (2026-05-20), with nearly 100 million additional barrels forfeited every week the blockade continues.1,2
The numbers offer no quick recovery path. Al Jaber told CNBC that restoring oil flows to 80% of pre-closure levels would take at least four months even if hostilities ended immediately. The UAE has redirected some exports through an existing pipeline to Fujairah, which has a maximum throughput of 1.8 million barrels per day. A second bypass pipeline is roughly half-built.1
ADNOC has also been sending LNG carriers through in dark mode — transponders switched off — Bloomberg reported on Wednesday (2026-05-27), citing shipping data showing one vessel sailing to India. The tactic keeps product moving but does not resolve the underlying access problem.3
The diplomatic track has offered no relief. Iran effectively ended a ceasefire with the United States in early June 2026, War on the Rocks reported on Thursday (2026-06-11). U.S. strikes on Tehran followed after Iran attacked a ship in the strait, Foreign Policy reported on Friday (2026-06-26), and CSIS on Wednesday (2026-08-05) said the cycle of strikes and counterstrikes is far from over.4,5,7
CNBC reported on Wednesday (2026-05-20) that both sides are using the strait as a bargaining chip. One figure quoted in the report described the $110 trillion global economy as hostage to "a couple of hundred men with guns across a 50-kilometer stretch of strait."2
Sodium-ion batteries occupy a different part of the energy system but are gaining attention in part because of energy security concerns. The cells require no lithium, cobalt, or nickel. A manufacturer is constructing a 183,000-square-foot sodium-ion battery plant in Sacramento, California, oilprice.com reported on Sunday (2026-07-12), with planned annual production capacity of 4 gigawatt-hours, enough to power roughly four million households.6
China leads the world in sodium-ion battery development. The Sacramento project is part of a broader U.S. effort to close that gap, according to the oilprice.com report, though American domestic capacity remains a fraction of Chinese output.6
For crude markets, ADNOC's Fujairah pipeline, capped at 1.8 million barrels per day, remains the primary near-term routing alternative for UAE barrels. The half-built second bypass adds no immediate capacity. JKM at $21.18/MMBtu and ICE Brent at $89.30/bbl mark where the market sits while waiting on either a diplomatic opening between Washington and Tehran, or another escalation that tightens supply further.1,7