Big oil tankers are commanding $280,000 a day to head into the Persian Gulf to pick up cargoes, danger notwithstanding

Fishermen cast their rods as ships are anchored Muscat, Oman, near the Strait of Hormuz last week. An uptick in transits through the strait followed a deal between the U.S. and Iran.

More ships are crossing the Strait of Hormuz, the key oil crossroads that was mostly blocked for months and roiled global crude markets amid the conflict between the U.S. and Iran.

The current traffic through the strait is not made up only of ships desperate to exit the Persian Gulf after months of being stuck there; it's going in both directions. Tankers are also headed into the Persian Gulf through the strait, on their way to pick up cargoes, danger notwithstanding.

They are being lured back into the Persian Gulf by money. Uncertainties - and war-risk insurance premiums - are still high, but they are no match for vessel charter rates that are nearly triple what they used to be.

The upticks follow the 60-day deal between the U.S. and Iran, and ongoing negotiations over the conflict's thornier disputes. For crude markets, the prospect of more Middle Eastern oil soon reaching global markets continues to push down prices.

Maritime-intelligence company Windward said it recorded 21 Hormuz transits on Tuesday, including seven ships crossing into the Persian Gulf.

Among the outbound 14 vessels were a South Korea-flagged container ship and a Liberia-flagged massive oil tanker, signaling "that market confidence in the viability of the passage is beginning to return," Windward said. The strait is not yet fully open, as operational restrictions and risks remain, Windward added.

As far as tankers still stranded, maritime and trade-intelligence company Kpler said Tuesday that it has recorded about 162 laden oil tankers still in or around the Strait of Hormuz, holding about 120 million barrels of crude and crude products.

The data from Windward and Kpler don't account for ships that have gone "dark," or turned off their GPS-like signals.

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New York-traded oil futures (CL00) and London-traded Brent crude futures (BRN00) each fell nearly 1% on Tuesday, to $73.20 a barrel and $76.85 a barrel, respectively. Their monthly losses are hovering around 16% so far.

The pause in hostilities is seen as tenuous.

"There's an extreme amount of uncertainty and, you know, things can change on a dime," said Lee Klaskow, a senior transportation, logistics and shipping Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

Ship owners are testing the waters in an environment of "constant change," and just one incident away from potential setbacks, he said.

Risk and reward

Higher charter rates for oil tankers are motivating owners to take the risk of entering the strait. Charter rates for the so-called Very Large Crude Carriers, the most-watched vessels in the oil trade, are hovering around $280,000 a day, nearly triple where they were before the conflict, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.

Those rates are even more attractive because they may be relatively short-lived. Many experts predict a diminished role for oil-hauling ships in and out of Hormuz over time as different countries seek to cut down their dependence on oil that moves through the strait.

Oil-producing Middle Eastern countries are exploring overland alternatives to the passageway, such as new pipelines or pipeline expansions, and energy-importing countries have sought alternatives to crude or alternatives to their supplies of crude.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are likely to prefer to rely on their pipelines, with the UAE "especially clear" that they do not want to rely solely on the strait, said Karen Young, a senior researcher at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy.

Reaching full production, as defined by the roughly 20 million barrels a day of crude and crude products coming through the Strait of Hormuz before the war, will be further stressed by shut-in wells and potential war damage sustained by oil facilities. "We would expect 70% of normal production in a few months," Young said.

The current higher charter rates mitigate expenses related to the still-elevated war-risk insurance premiums tankers need to pay. Those premiums used to be around 0.1% to 0.2% of the value of the cargo transported and reportedly have soared to as much 10% of the value of the cargo for some higher-risk ships in March.

Current rates are hovering at about half such highs, experts say, but remain elevated, given the uncertainty around the 60-day deal between the U.S. and Iran.

Related: Two key things that need to happen before Strait of Hormuz traffic can return to prewar levels

-Claudia Assis

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June 24, 2026 09:37 ET (13:37 GMT)

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