An oil tanker moves at the speed of a bicycle.

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I’m serious. A fully loaded supertanker, four football pitches long, carrying 2-3 million barrels of crude, cruises at 10 to 15 knots. That’s 18 to 28 km/h. The same speed I ride my e-bike around Kampala.

Max Fisher made this point in a recent video breaking down the Iran oil crisis, and it reframed the whole thing for me. When the Strait of Hormuz shut down on February 28, the world didn’t notice immediately because millions of barrels were already in transit, pedalling their way around the globe at bicycle speed. The oil arriving in March was shipped in January.

JP Morgan mapped the delivery stop dates. Africa: March 20. Asia: April 1. Europe: April 10. The United States: April 15. Today.

The reserves and market tricks that have kept things feeling normal are running out at the same time as the last pre-war shipments. What comes next is the real price shock.

Here’s the bit that matters for East Africa.

Mombasa is roughly 4,800 km from the Persian Gulf.

Rotterdam is 11,000 km.

Tokyo is 12,000 km.

When those bicycle-speed tankers start moving again, they reach Mombasa in about 8 days. Europe waits three weeks. Japan waits nearly a month. Proximity cuts both ways. We got hit first. We’ll recover first, if there’s a deal.

But “recover first” still means weeks of disruption and months of elevated prices, because our economies are tethered to ships that move no faster than a rider on a bicycle.

How is the fuel crisis showing up where you are?

Written by

Mutabazi Geofrey

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