A fully closed Strait of Hormuz was long considered as impossible and unmanageable, according to past modeling and interviews with energy experts. In two major exercises assessing potential oil disruptions, one in 2007 and another in 2022, energy experts judged it either too unlikely or too large in scale to adequately plan around. Sam Ori, who worked on the 2007 exercise at the nonprofit Securing America's Energy Future, said the idea was dismissed as an "economic apocalyptic scenario." The Strait is the most important chokepoint in the global energy system and is a key economic artery for numerous products, including oil and liquefied natural gas. The current situation illustrates how little of a playbook exists for what could come next.