Strait of Hormuz Transits Halt Amid US-Iran Tensions
LONDON — Lloyd’s List Intelligence recorded zero commercial ships above 10,000 deadweight tonnes transiting the Strait of Hormuz’s southern corridor with active AIS transponders on Wednesday, July 9, down from 33 traceable crossings one day earlier. The effective halt followed renewed US-Iran strikes between July 7 and 9 — shutting down a waterway that carried approximately 20 million barrels of crude and condensate per day before the war began in February.
The Strait of Hormuz has been a critical chokepoint for global oil supplies, with over 30% of all seaborne oil traded passing through it. The recent halt in transits highlights the significant impact of US-Iran tensions on global energy markets.
Brent Crude Price Holds Steady
Brent crude settled at roughly $76 per barrel on July 10, approximately $4 above pre-crisis levels and well below the $86.60 fiscal breakeven the International Monetary Fund calculated for Saudi Arabia this year. The gap between a closed strait and a flat price contains an implicit market assumption: that Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline, the UAE’s Habshan-Fujairah bypass, and dark-fleet tankers running without transponders provide enough alternative capacity to prevent a supply shock.
The structural surplus that has suppressed prices despite Hormuz disruption was tested again on July 10, when the US struck targets near Asaluyeh — the processing hub for South Pars — and Brent fell two percent, confirming that a 5 mb/d oversupply has severed the link between energy infrastructure strikes and market prices.
Dark Fleets and Pipelines Fill the Gap
Combined, those channels cover approximately 37.5 percent of normal Hormuz throughput, according to calculations based on data from the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, Rapidan Energy Group, and Aramco production disclosures. The structural surplus that has suppressed prices despite Hormuz disruption was tested again on July 10, when the US struck targets near Asaluyeh — the processing hub for South Pars — and Brent fell two percent, confirming that a 5 mb/d oversupply has severed the link between energy infrastructure strikes and market prices.
The IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez condemned attacks on commercial vessels and urged flag states to stop exposing seafarers to the strait. Thousands of crew remain stranded in the Persian Gulf after an earlier evacuation effort was suspended when a vessel was attacked in the Gulf of Oman in late June.
What Lloyd’s List Recorded
The progression from degraded flow to effective closure took three days. On July 6, Houseofsaud.com reported 27 AIS-visible ships per day transiting the strait, against a pre-war baseline of 84. By Tuesday July 8, Lloyd’s List Intelligence counted 33 transits — a brief uptick. On Wednesday July 9, following the second wave of US-Iran strikes, the southern corridor — the Oman-hugging lane that commercial vessels use to avoid Iranian territorial waters — registered no traceable crossings above 10,000 dwt. Lloyd’s List characterized shipping through the chokepoint as having “effectively ground to a halt.”
Original Article: Hormuz Records Zero Transits as Brent Holds at $76 — Houseofsaud