The Strait of Hormuz is waking up. After months of tension, blockade, and geopolitical brinkmanship, oil tankers are once again threading through one of the world’s most critical chokepoints. According to trade intelligence firm Kpler, at least 20 oil tankers have crossed the strait since the US and Iran agreed to reopen the sea lane to commercial shipping. Thursday saw the highest level of tanker transits since early June.
That’s the good news.
The less rosy reality? Traffic is still a shell of what it once was. Before the conflict erupted, more than 100 ships, including dozens of tankers, moved through Hormuz on a daily basis. Now,总量 — total ship movements — sits at roughly a quarter of that. Thursday’s count of 25 vessels across all classes (tankers, cargo ships, container vessels) is a far cry from the prewar norm.
It’s tempting to see this as a clean win. The US Navy pulled back its blockade. Tehran is letting ships cross without tolls for 60 days. Vice President JD Vance told reporters the Iranians are, so far, “honoring their end of the commitment.” Matt Smith, Kpler’s commodity research director, noted that traffic was fairly balanced: 13 crossings West to East, 12 going the other way.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE each sent a few massive VLCCs — the kind of supertankers that can haul 2 million barrels of oil in a single run. Iranian supertankers, which had gone dark during the hostilities, are switching their transponders back on. Five loaded Iranian vessels were observed departing the region on Friday. That two-way flow suggests Tehran is slowly getting its crude trade machinery back online.
But here’s what’s actually interesting about this situation — and it barely got mentioned in the coverage.
Eighteen of the ships that crossed on Thursday followed the route Iran designated. Just one vessel used the path defined by the International Maritime Organization. One. For the rest, the routing is either unclear or deliberately ambiguous. That tells you something about the fragile state of this arrangement. The US and Iran may have agreed to reopen the strait, but they haven’t agreed on who actually controls how it’s used.
And that 60-day toll-free window? It’s not a permanent fix. Once it expires, Iran plans to sit down with Oman and the Gulf states to figure out how to administer the strait going forward. The door is wide open for tolls to be introduced later. This isn’t a return to normal — it’s a pause, a negotiation in progress.
For a region where oil flows dictate global energy economics, normalcy might be a long way off.
