Lloyd's List Intelligence counted 84 Strait of Hormuz transits in the week of July 27 to August 2, up from 45 the week before, and still called traffic depressed. [1] Non-Iranian-linked transits rose from 28 to 52. Containerships and gas carriers resumed after a short pause. At least one LNG carrier and one LPG carrier entered the Gulf. Three LNG carriers left, one of them struck in transit. [1]
The paper's Tuesday lead said Iran and Oman advanced a temporary route. Wednesday's owners did not treat that draft as a booking note. Lloyd's said mixed signals from Washington and Tehran were keeping transits down, and that reports of diplomatic progress had not yet become a development that would change risk math. [1]
The memorandum's collapse left a new stranded cohort. Mainstream tankers trapped in the region had fallen from more than 160 to 29 while the memorandum held. Sixty-five ships that entered in that calm have not left. More than seventy have remained since the conflict began. [1] Westbound non-Iranian-linked transits nearly doubled, to 21 from 11, driven by tankers, bulkers, and gas carriers. Lloyd's warned against reading the uptick as confidence. [1]
Shadow-fleet product tankers provided a slight lift. At least ten product tankers transited, up from six, including four shadow-fleet ships that have shifted into compliant trades. VLCCs still shuttle crude west of Hormuz and offload by ship-to-ship transfer in the Gulf of Oman. Lloyd's tracked at least twelve crude tankers exiting and ten entering, and said the true number is higher because of dark operations. [1]
CENTCOM still reports 45 merchant ships redirected, two disabled, and two boarded. [1] Tankers with a history of lifting Iranian crude have been gathering off Duqm and Karachi, ready if the blockade eases. [1] Markets can hear a deal. The completed Wednesday table is a modest bounce, a stranded second cohort, and an industry that will move only when the risk calculation actually changes.
Since August 1, two ships on the Omani bypass have been struck, with at least one additional attempt. About a quarter of confirmed non-Iranian-linked traffic still uses that channel, though dark activity hides the rest. [1] Iran is punishing the workaround while it argues about a draft that would replace both workarounds. That is not a market that hears soon. That is a market that hears steel.
Non-Iranian gas and box ships resumed after pauses of two weeks and one week. [1] Resumption is not confidence. It is a calendar and a charter that could not wait. One departing LNG carrier was hit in transit. [1] A desk that books the next gas hull will price that sentence before it prices Axios.
Lloyd's will brief again Thursday. [1] The house has already said participants will move quickly if a credible development appears. Wednesday's draft fight is not that development. The 65 and the 70-plus are. Owners who escaped during the memorandum will not send a second cohort in on an adjective. They will wait for a published scheme, a published fee, and a week without a strike on the Omani lane. None of those arrived with the 84-transit bounce.
Crude shuttling west of Hormuz and STS transfers in the Gulf of Oman are how the industry already fakes a strait. [1] Twelve tracked exits and ten entries are a floor, not a census, because dark operations hide the rest. Product tankers at ten, including four shadow-fleet ships in compliant trades, are a lift that is not a market reopening. [1] A reader who only hears deal will book a hull. A reader who only reads Lloyd's will wait. The paper reads Lloyd's.
-- HENDRIK VAN DER BERG, Brussels