I simulated closing the Strait of Hormuz on real oil trade data
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OP here: I created this visualization tool as the byproduct of a supply chain class I taught at Columbia. The pedagogical exercise grew into a full blown visualization and paper about global oil trade.The model: The mechanics are the same as the financial network Eisenberg-Noe: Instead of banks, every country consumes oil interconnected via bilateral trading. Shocks propagate throughout the network, depleting oil reserves when bottleneck nodes (such as the Strait of Hormuz) are blocked.Insights: The interesting part is the mechanics of how the crisis unfolds: for example, France receives 0 oil from Hormuz directly, yet their reserves are depleted faster because other countries reactively increase their safety oil stock, increasing oil price, making stockouts more expensive for everyone.The model also gives price dynamics which are interesting on their own: the price increase is not immediate, it follows sequentially as countries reserves deplete.Some caveats: 1. For producer nodes, depletion means their export slack is reduced/exhausted. 2. No sanctioned trade (UN Comtrade data)Technical Details: The visualization is 600 lines of flask plus js frontend (LLM assisted visualization with ground-truth matching the original numerical exercise of the paper)Paper with proofs/theory: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.17491
HN · launched Jul 23, 2026 · 244 upvotes (top 2%) · 0 views
Niche: data and scientific visualization tools · 146 launches, 3 in the last 7 days ▼ -50% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Energy & climate
- Analytics & BI
- B2B
- Not AI
- Hobby / open-source project
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More like this: all 146 launches in data and scientific visualization tools →
Could you build this?
Partial The interactive web visualization and dashboard can easily be vibe-coded, but implementing the accurate clearing-vector network model (Eisenberg-Noe algorithm) and compiling genuine global oil trade data require specific economic network domain knowledge.
What it would actually take: The architecture combines a Three.js/deck.gl front end with a Python/NumPy backend or WebAssembly module running the Eisenberg-Noe recursive clearing algorithm. The primary hurdles are curating bilateral crude trade matrix datasets (e.g., UN Comtrade, Kpler, or tanker tracking data) and calibrating systemic risk propagation parameters across shipping choke points. Deep familiarity with financial contagion math and maritime energy logistics is required.
Discussion
20 comments analyzed.
Concerns raised: Data doesn't include sanctioned oil flows (Iran) and Chinese reserve levels are state secrets, Model shows China's stockpile depleted in 1.2 weeks, contradicts reported 1.4B barrel (~5 month) emergency stockpile, Backtesting accuracy against recent data unclear, Model is baseline/stress-testing tool, not actual prediction
Feature requests: Bring Your Own Data (BYOD) capability to input alternative datasets and run custom scenarios
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 234 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #2 of 235 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 252 days after the earliest competitor.
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- Hormuz Crisis Dashboard Real-time shipping disruption tracker · hn · 2026-03-05 · 32 upvotes · similarity 0.44
- supply-chain-shock-map · github · 2026-11-05 · 149 upvotes · similarity 0.43
- depletion-ledger · github · 2026-09-13 · 11 upvotes · similarity 0.42
- TLDR.Market · hn · 2025-12-22 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.42
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