MW Only about 8 ships a day are passing through the Strait of Hormuz - 94% fewer than usual

By Claudia Assis

With the conflict in Iran raging, the number of oil tankers and cargo ships making their way through the strategic waterway has plummeted

Commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is "virtually nonexistent" almost a week after the United States and Israel launched an attack on Iran.

On Tuesday, the day Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz closed, eight ships were tracked navigating through the narrow waterway, according to an analysis by J.P. Morgan's energy and commodities group. Normally, about 138 vessels go through the strait on a given day.

For the rest of the week, the pattern continued, with only a handful of oil tankers and cargo ships attempting to transit the strait. On Wednesday, J.P. Morgan tracked seven ships navigating the narrow waterway, and on Thursday, 10 vessels made the trip. On average, about eight vessels have been tracked making the voyage daily since the war in Iran escalated, the analysis showed.

The lack of oil-tanker traffic is deepening the crisis in energy and global shipping and pushing up the price of oil. President Donald Trump on Friday called for Iran's "unconditional surrender," and there's no deal in sight to end to the war that is roiling financial markets.

Commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains "virtually nonexistent, with activity largely limited to Iranian vessels," analysts at J.P. Morgan said.

The strait is a chokepoint for oil and other energy products, with about a fifth of the world's crude oil and crude supplies passing through it.

The U.S. and Israel launched attacks on Iran on Saturday, and on Monday ship traffic through the strait dropped to about 17% of a typical day. As the conflict widened and oil and gas infrastructure in the Persian Gulf was damaged, traffic ground nearly to a halt. The current number of ships transiting the strait amounts to about 6% of the historical average, the J.P. Morgan analysis shows.

A few tankers are passing through despite the risks, and some are turning off their signals to pass through at night and may not be accounted for, said Matt Smith, an oil analyst with Kpler.

Some 411 tankers are currently stuck in the Persian Gulf, according to global trade data analytics firm Kpler. That in itself is not an unusual number, as ships routinely wait their turn to load or unload at port berths in the region. But amid the current conflict, the number of empty ships is dropping while the number of loaded tankers is rising, Smith said.

There was a flurry of activity in the Gulf in the weeks leading up to the attacks, as Iran seemed to anticipate military action and increased its crude exports, Smith said.

Iran exported 26.5 million barrels of crude during the week of Feb. 16, compared with the about 10 million barrels to 12 million barrels the country typically exports in a week. The week immediately before the attacks, as diplomacy frayed, Iranian exports were back at their normal levels.

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Huge oil tankers usually headed from the Gulf to East Asia can carry about 2 million barrels of oil, while smaller tankers headed to the Suez Canal are able to carry about 1 million barrels.

Unable to move crude through the strait, producers have shifted storage onto ships and other facilities, the J.P. Morgan analysts said.

Since the end of February, roughly 76 million barrels of stored crude have accumulated, of which about 46 million barrels are being stored on tankers, 22 million barrels are stored at refiners and 8 million barrels are in commercial storage facilities, the analysts said. Most of the inventory buildup appears to be concentrated in Saudi Arabia, they added.

If storage capacity runs out, it would lead to shutdowns in production, adding more pressure on energy markets - and at U.S. gas pumps. New York-traded oil futures (CL00) have shot up more than 37% this week, on pace for the largest weekly percentage gain on record. London-traded Brent crude (BRN00) has gained 29% in the same period, its best weekly gain since the week ending April 3, 2020.

See also: Oil hits 23-month high as Qatar minister warns prices could reach $150

Trump said earlier this week that the U.S. would provide naval escorts for ships and that a relatively obscure U.S. government agency, the International Development Finance Corp., would provide political-risk insurance for the maritime trade. The DFC is the international-investment arm of the U.S. government, and its funding was capped at $205 billion as of February.

White House officials said late Thursday that the administration is talking with insurers and conducting "extensive analyses on the maritime situation in the Gulf," which is a priority for the government. It is also exploring "other interventions" to mitigate the situation, they said.

The insurance plan, however, has come under criticism as likely impractical or insufficient, at least in the short term.

-Claudia Assis

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March 06, 2026 14:40 ET (19:40 GMT)

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