The Indian Ocean is the world’s third largest ocean, after the Pacific and the Atlantic. It measures 9,600 km from the Bay of Bengal to the Antarctic and 7,800 km from South Africa to Western Australia. Its total area of 21.45 million square nautical miles constitutes 20 per cent of the world’s water surface. It has a total coastline of 70,000 km. The Indian Ocean is home to about 36 countries, with 35 per cent of the world’s population and 40 per cent of the world’s coastline.
The Indian Ocean Region (IOR) is at the centre of global commerce: nearly 100,000 ships transit the ocean annually, with 30 per cent of global containerised cargo, while 42 per cent of global crude oil, product and distillate is lifted from and within the region. The IOR has over 50 per cent each of global oil reserves and global proven gas reserves. The ocean also accommodates about 20 per cent of the world’s refining facilities, spread across the Gulf region (mainly Jubail in Saudi Arabia), Jamnagar in Gujarat, and Singapore. The ocean has offshore oil and gas exploration and production activities off the coasts of India, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other GCC countries, and western Australia, accounting for 40 per cent of global offshore production.
Some of the world’s largest and busiest ports are located along the Indian Ocean rim, including Singapore, which handles about one-seventh of the world’s total container transshipment throughput. Again, of the world’s 20 top nations with the largest merchant fleets, three—India, Malaysia and Singapore—are among the Indian Ocean littoral states. The world’s busiest sea lane on the global east-west trade route passes through the northern Indian Ocean, making it “the world’s foremost maritime geostrategic and trading interconnectors”.
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This ocean has five chokepoints and a channel, that, being major waterways for international commerce, impart to the ocean a great strategic significance.
The Strait of Hormuz links the oil-producing centres of the Gulf with the Indian Ocean. It is between 48 and 80 km wide, but navigation is limited to two 3-km-wide channels which are used for inbound and outbound vessels. About 88 per cent of Gulf oil passes through the strait, which is nearly 35 per cent of world oil and 35 per cent of global oil shipments. On an average day, 3,000 vessels, from oil tankers to fishing boats, pass through the strait.
The Strait of Malacca lies between Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, linking the Indian Ocean with the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean. About 50,000 vessels pass through it annually. About 15 million barrels of oil go through this strait daily, i.e., 30 per cent of the global oil trade and 80 per cent of the oil imported (mainly from the Gulf) by the major Asian consumers, China, Japan, and South Korea.
The Bab el-Mandeb Strait links the Indian Ocean with the Red Sea through the Gulf of Aden. Most of the oil destined for European markets passes through this strait. Closure of this strait would mean that tankers would need to go around the Cape of Good Hope, which would add 4,750 nautical miles and 12 to 14 days to reach the port of Rotterdam.
Two other straits in the Indian Ocean are the Sunda and the Lombok. Sunda lies between the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra and links the Java Sea with the Indian Ocean. The strait is shallow and narrow, has heavy tidal waves, drilling platforms and tiny islands, all of which do not make it attractive for movement of large oil tankers. Lombok lies between the islands of Bali and Lombok, and is a possible alternative route to the Malacca Strait, but using it adds 1,600 km and over three days to journey time.
Finally, the Mozambique Channel, lying between the island of Madagascar and the coast of south-east Africa, is 1,600 km long and between 400 and 950 km wide. It caters to about 30 per cent of the global oil trade and nearly all of South Africa’s maritime trade.
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