KEY POINTS
- Only five commodity vessels crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday and none on Sunday, Kpler data showed.
- Traffic collapsed after the UAE said three ADNOC vessels were attacked in transit last week.
- Iran says shipping will resume only if Washington meets its conditions, as US-Iran talks stall.
Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz slowed sharply over the weekend after attacks on tankers, data showed on Monday, as talks between the United States and Iran to end the Middle East conflict stalled.
Only five commodity vessels crossed the strait on Saturday, and shiptracking firm Kpler registered none on Sunday, down from 31 a weekend earlier.
Traffic near standstill
According to Kpler, the vessels that did enter on Saturday included an empty supertanker with its tracking system switched off and an Indian-flagged gas carrier that used the Iranian route, while a small tanker carrying Iranian fuel oil left the waterway. Moreover, traffic all but stopped after the United Arab Emirates said attackers struck three ADNOC vessels in transit last week.
Still, some ships may slip through undetected with their transponders off. However, the flow sits far below the more than 130 vessels a day that passed before the war the United States and Israel launched on Iran in February. Consequently, the disruption keeps rippling through a route that once handled a fifth of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas shipments.
Stalled talks and a second chokepoint
The United States said it could hold a naval blockade of Iran indefinitely, which hardened the standoff. Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, said Washington must meet Tehran’s conditions on the strait before shipping can resume, so no quick reopening looks likely. Because both sides have dug in, traders now brace for a prolonged squeeze on Gulf exports.
Furthermore, a second chokepoint remains under strain. At the Bab el-Mandeb strait, where Yemen’s Houthis declared a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia on July 20, Kpler counted 49 commodity transits over the weekend, down from 55 the week before, and it tracked no Saudi oil shipments at all. Therefore, with two key passages squeezed at once, exporters and buyers face a tighter and costlier map for moving oil and gas.
