As the war in Iran enters its ninth week with no clear end in sight, shipping traffic in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz has been completely reshaped, heavily disrupting global markets and supply chains for oil, natural gas, fertilizer and other essential products.
Before the United States and Israel launched their attacks on Iran in late February about 3,000 vessels typically passed through the Strait of Hormuz each month, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence. Oil tankers passing through accounted for an estimated 15 million barrels per day of crude and other oil product exports, data from the analytics firm Kpler shows, amounting to about one-fifth of the world’s oil trade.
But since the war began, traffic has been reduced to a trickle, with just 154 vessels recorded crossing in the entire month of March, according to Kpler data.
“The disruption is both rapid and unprecedented,” said Dimitris Ampatzidis, a maritime risk and compliance manager at Kpler.
Overall, traffic through Hormuz in the last two months has run at about 5% of the pre-war average, leading to shortages of refined products, especially in Asia.
Despite the dramatic disruption, a small number of ships are still coming in and out of the Persian Gulf via the strait. But experts say more vessels are leaving than entering, indicating that shipping operators are mitigating risks by avoiding the area entirely and reallocating flows.
“There are still over 800 vessels in the gulf, but ‘stranded’ isn’t the right term for all of them,” Ampatzidis told CNN in an email. “Many regional vessels, particularly Iranian and gulf operators, are continuing to operate normally within local routes.”
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