Ship traffic through the strait of Hormuz — the world's most critical oil and LNG shipping lane — has almost ground to a halt since US and Israeli forces struck Iran on 28 February, with only three tankers recorded sailing through the waterway on 1 March, according to the Joint Maritime Information Center (JMIC).
This compares with 50 tankers on 28 February, a 94pc fall, while cargo ship transits also plunged to 18 vessels from 98 over the same period, JMIC said. The historical daily average is about 138 ships, JMIC said.
Transits remained minimal on 2 March, ship tracking data show.
Kpler data show the last vessel to transit the strait on 28 February was the VLCC KHK Empress, which sailed westbound at around 14 knots before making a sudden U-turn and retreating back through Hormuz at speeds of up to 16.7 knots, according to AIS positioning data.
AIS — the automatic identification system — is used to track vessels globally. For safety reasons, some ships may be transiting the strait without broadcasting their AIS signal, meaning actual traffic may be higher than reported. One example is the Dynacom-owned Suezmax Pola, which last signalled east of Hormuz late on 2 March en route to Sohar in Oman before reappearing off Dubai after its passage through the strait, Kpler data show.
But even accounting for these "dark" transits, vessel movements through Hormuz have fallen sharply since the conflict began and are likely to remain low while P&I clubs and insurers refuse to issue war-risk cover for the area.
