About Chokepoints – sources and methodology
Who makes this
Chokepoints is built and maintained by Krzysztof Piskorz, a software engineer and product designer based in Poland. It started as a personal project: a way to understand the physical side of the oil market that news reports mention but never show.
What this is
Chokepoints is an interactive map of the world's crude oil trade: who produces it, who buys it, which sea routes it takes and where a single strait can stop a large share of a country's supply. It is built for readers, journalists and analysts who want to understand the physical side of oil in minutes rather than hours.
Data sources
Bilateral volumes come from the importing country's customs statistics for crude oil (HS 2709) for 2024, as published by UN Comtrade – the importer knows where the oil actually came from. Tonnes are converted at 7.33 barrels per tonne and spread evenly over the year. Country totals (production, imports, exports) are 2024 monthly averages from JODI. Where an importer does not report origin in a usable form (Turkey; Belgium, which books Rotterdam pipeline deliveries as Dutch), figures are analyst estimates and are marked as such.
- UN Comtrade – imports of crude oil (HS 2709) by origin, 2024
- JODI – Joint Organisations Data Initiative (monthly production, imports, exports)
- EIA – U.S. Energy Information Administration (chokepoint volumes, 2023)
- Energy Institute Statistical Review, OPEC ASB (countries not reporting to JODI)
How the routes are drawn
Sea routes are not drawn by hand. Each trade route is the shortest path between a loading port and a discharge port on the MARNET global shipping network (Eurostat / searoute), computed with Dijkstra's algorithm. Chokepoints on a route are detected automatically. Very large tankers (VLCC) are routed around Africa where they cannot use the Suez or Panama canals when fully laden. Arctic passages and the Strait of Magellan are excluded.
Where several routes share a stretch of sea, their volumes are added up – so the width of a line shows the total amount of oil moving along that segment.
What comes from data and what is an assumption
Being explicit about this matters more than looking complete.
- From data: volumes of 197 of 207 trade routes (UN Comtrade, importer's customs statistics, HS 2709 crude oil, 2024); production, imports and exports for 36 countries (JODI, 2024 monthly averages); oil consumption for 43 countries (Energy Institute Statistical Review via Our World in Data, converted from energy units at 1.87 kb/d per TWh); chokepoint throughput (EIA, 2023, crude + products); sea routes (computed on MARNET).
- Estimates, marked as such in the app: 10 routes where the importer does not report usable origin (Turkey, Belgium, Belarus); production/exports for countries that do not report to JODI (Russia, UAE, Iran, Brazil, Angola, Libya, Venezuela – from EIA/OPEC figures); consumption for Guyana, Congo and Serbia.
- Model assumptions: East-West pipeline capacity 5 million b/d, Caspian–BTC 0.3 million b/d, tanker speed 12 knots, 7.33 barrels per tonne. Chokepoint risk levels and the explanatory notes are the author's editorial judgement, not a data source.
- Crude oil only (HS 2709). Refined products – diesel, petrol, jet fuel (HS 2710) – are not on the map, although for some countries (Poland included) product imports matter as much as crude. No grade breakdown (light/heavy, sweet/sour): customs data do not provide it.
- All volumes are 2024 annual averages – the structure of dependence before the 2026 crisis, not current flows.
What the numbers mean – and what they don't
The map covers roughly 100 of the largest bilateral relationships. Smaller suppliers and buyers are shown as “other” in each country's breakdown, so shares always add up to 100% of the country's total. Figures are rounded and should be read as orders of magnitude, not audited statistics. Consumption figures refer to all petroleum products.
This is an independent project with no affiliation to any oil company, government or trade body. Corrections are welcome.
Map
Base map © CARTO, © OpenStreetMap contributors. Borders are shown as in the base map and imply no position on their status.
For journalists and researchers
You are welcome to embed, screenshot, quote and republish the map, its pages and images under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence (CC BY 4.0) – credit “chokepoints.io” with a link. The social preview images (1200×630) for every country, chokepoint and scenario are free to use as illustrations.
Suggested citation: Chokepoints (2026), Global crude oil flows 2024, chokepoints.io. Underlying data: UN Comtrade, JODI, EIA.
Need a specific view, a higher-resolution export or a custom scenario? Write to [email protected].
Disclaimer
Figures are annual 2024 averages, not real-time data, and are rounded. The closure scenarios model physical routes only. Nothing here is investment, trading or policy advice.