Reading List 03/14/26
Closure of the Strait of Hormuz, banning build-to-rent homes in the US, Honda’s EV losses, Travis Kalanick’s new company, Corpus Christi’s water crisis, and more.
Welcome to the reading list, a weekly roundup of news and links related to buildings, infrastructure, and industrial technology. This week we look at closure of the Strait of Hormuz, banning build-to-rent homes in the US, Honda’s EV losses, Travis Kalanick’s new company, Corpus Christi’s water crisis, and more. Roughly 2/3rds of the reading list is paywalled, so for full access become a paid subscriber.
Housekeeping items this week:
I added an extra section on the infrastructure-related issues of the war in Iran this week. The normal reading list continues below the paywall.
I was a guest on the Go/No-go podcast.
War in Iran
Iran has begun to attack ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz; in normal times the strait carries about 3000 ships per month, including a large number of oil tankers. Roughly 20% of the world’s oil — around 20 million barrels of oil per day — passes through the Strait of Hormuz. This has effectively shut down traffic through the strait, because insurance companies have withdrawn coverage. Via Shanaka Anslem Perera on Substack:
At midnight Greenwich Mean Time on 5 March 2026, seven of the twelve International Group Protection and Indemnity clubs that collectively insure roughly 90% of the world’s ocean-going tonnage executed identical cancellation notices for war-risk coverage across the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, and Iranian territorial waters.
Gard, NorthStandard, Skuld, Steamship Mutual, the American Club, the Swedish Club, and the London P&I Club withdrew coverage. They did not act because a government ordered them to. They did not act because a naval commander declared a blockade. They did not act because a single mine had been laid in the shipping channel. They withdrew because their London treaty reinsurers, confronting unlimited tail exposure in an active combat zone, could no longer satisfy the 99.5% Value-at-Risk capital charges mandated by the European Union’s Solvency II directive. The reinsurers pulled capacity. The clubs, which operate as mutuals whose losses fall directly on member shipowners, had no mathematical alternative.
And from NBC:
Even in peacetime, the world of shipping is a bureaucratic labyrinth of captains, owners, brokers and insurers. When war breaks out, many insurers trigger what are known as standard war-risk cancellation clauses, according to Jungman at Vortexa.
These clauses allow insurers to “withdraw coverage on short notice when an area becomes an active conflict zone,” she said. And “without insurance, most commercial ships simply cannot sail.”
Some companies do provide insurance, “but the pricing and conditions can be extremely restrictive,” Jungman added. In some cases, premiums have risen by as much as 1,000%, according to Reuters.
Thanks to the disruption, oil prices have spiked, affecting the price of not just gas but lots of other products. Via Reuters:
Oil prices rose to $119 a barrel on Monday, their highest level since 2022 because of the disruption, though they dropped again before the market closed. If supply disruptions are prolonged, prices could rise further until the recessionary effect of higher energy costs destroys demand. Crude oil, gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, natural gas, petrochemicals, power, and fertilizer prices have all risen sharply since the conflict began.
As a result of the closure, various companies are declaring force majeure (extreme circumstances which frees you from liability for breaking a contract). Via Petar Momchev on Twitter:
To try and reduce oil prices, the Trump Administration plans to suspend the Jones Act, which requires goods carried between US ports to be carried on US built ships.
The 30-day exemption, which is still being developed, is set to apply broadly to vessels moving oil, gasoline, diesel, liquefied natural gas and fertilizer among US ports, the people said. That would enable generally cheaper foreign tankers to move those goods — including Gulf Coast oil to refineries on the US East Coast and fuel from the region to more populous areas.
Japan also plans to release part of its strategic petroleum reserve.
Oil isn’t the only thing that passes through the Strait of Hormuz. The Middle East is responsible for a large share of fertilizer exports (because the production of fertilizer uses natural gas as both a chemical feedstock and a source of cheap energy), and a large chunk of the world’s fertilizer passes through the Strait. Fertilizer prices have spiked. Via Carnegie Endowment for Peace:
In particular, Gulf countries are important producers of nitrogen fertilizers, which depend primarily on natural gas burned at high pressure in the presence of hydrogen to synthesize ammonia. (The hydrogen usually comes from natural gas as well.)
But it’s not just that Gulf fertilizer can’t make it to export markets such as Sudan, Brazil, or Sri Lanka. It’s also that fertilizer producers elsewhere lack key ingredients. This is where the second-order effects of a supply chain crisis appear, just as they did during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which sent fertilizer prices soaring.
Deprived of their natural gas supplies from Qatar, fertilizer firms in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan have had to shut down production.
The war might damage the extensive desalination infrastructure that countries in the middle east rely on to produce fresh water. Via the Associated Press:
The war that began Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran has already brought fighting close to key desalination infrastructure. On March 2, Iranian strikes on Dubai’s Jebel Ali port landed some 12 miles from one of the world’s largest desalination plants, which produces much of the city’s drinking water.
And attacks on Tehran’s oil facilities have created a poisonous “black rain.” Via the BBC:
Since the US-Israeli attacks on Iran began on 28 February, we have confirmed strikes on at least four oil facilities around the capital.
Residents said smog and pollution have blocked out the Sun and left a strong smell of burning in parts of the city, while experts warn the scale of some of the pollutants released could be “unprecedented”.
The spike in air pollution appears to focus near the damaged oil sites around the capital - a city with a population of nearly 10 million, with millions more in the surrounding areas.