The Strait of Hormuz has become a ghost town, er strait, with traffic grinding to a complete halt as no new commercial ship crossings were recorded despite a US effort to guide vessels through the waterway, according to Bloomberg.
While Maersk confirmed that its vessel Alliance Fairfax transited the strait on Monday under US military protection, Tuesday saw zero traffic following a day of violence that included attacks on vessels and missile strikes targeting the United Arab Emirates.
Confusion was rampant after Washington maintained that a safe passage exists, with two US destroyers reportedly entering the Gulf, but the heightened tensions kept commercial shipping at bay.
On Monday, two US vessels, one of them a vehicle carrier, moved out of the Persian Gulf under military escort while keeping their tracking signals off. Visible outbound activity during the same period was limited to an Iran-linked liquefied petroleum gas carrier, a small feeder containership, and a tiny regional cargo ship.
Ships transiting Hormuz with active AIS signals over the past day were confined to the narrow northern lane approved by Tehran. Also, widespread AIS spoofing has further clouded the picture, making independent verification of ship traffic virtually impossible
As reported previously, most of the recent Iran-linked departures have stalled in the Gulf of Oman; it remains unclear whether these vessels are following regional trading patterns or are being held up by a US naval blockade positioned further east. Only one containership entered the Persian Gulf on Monday before the flare-up in regional hostilities; there were no inbound transits on Tuesday.
While the fragile ceasefire held, about five dozen vessels moved toward Dubai in just one day, joining a growing cluster of at least 363 ships currently off the emirate in the Persian Gulf as Iran signaled it is expanding the area around Hormuz it now controls.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) unveiled on Monday a new map showing expanded areas around the critical chokepoint that Iran now claims to have under control. The area extends from a line between Kuh-e Mobarak in Iran and south of Fujairah in the UAE, and from another line between the end of Iran’s Qeshm Island and Umm Al Quwain in the UAE, according to the IRGC Navy.
Dubai, one of the seven emirates of the UAE, is just outside this new expanded area under Iranian control. Since Monday, nearly 60 vessels of all types have moved toward Dubai to an area of a large cluster of ships monitored by Bloomberg News. At least 363 vessels are in this area off Dubai, at least according to their tracking signals, which have become increasingly difficult to monitor and read since the war began and the Strait of Hormuz was closed.
The tensions in the area re-escalated on Monday, after the announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump of an operation dubbed “Project Freedom”, to guide ships stuck in the Strait of Hormuz out of the waterway. Iran responded to the announcement with a warning that U.S. forces “will be attacked if they intend to approach and enter the Strait of Hormuz”.
Iran on Monday attacked the port of Fujairah, a vital oil hub that sits right outside the Strait of Hormuz, and which saw several attacks before the U.S.-Iran ceasefire was announced in early April.
As the ceasefire looks increasingly fragile as of Tuesday, while dark oil loadings and transit activity from Iran continues.
“Kharg Island is operating under a near-total dark posture,” maritime intelligence firm Windward said on Monday, adding that Iranian oil cargo routes to Asia start to shift via Indonesia’s Lombok Strait, avoiding the more visible Strait of Malacca.