Six million barrels finally clear Hormuz, but the strait stays 90% shut

Six million barrels finally clear Hormuz, but the strait stays 90% shut Three stranded supertankers crossed Hormuz on May 20, yet traffic stays a fraction of pre-war levels as insurers and Iran's transit demands keep most cargoes frozen. Three supertankers crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday (2026-05-20), carrying 6 million barrels of Middle East crude bound for Asia, after waiting in the Gulf for more than two months, according to shipping data on LSEG and Kpler. One of them, the South Korean-flagged VLCC Universal Winner, had been holding 2 million barrels of Kuwaiti crude loaded back on March 4.² That trickle matters because it is just that — a trickle. Tanker traffic through the strait has collapsed by 90% to 95% against pre-war levels, a figure analysts broadly agree on, and a handful of departures does little to change it. On Monday (2026-05-18), vessel-tracking data showed a single ship exiting the Gulf while two entered, after a fresh escalation between Iran and the United States.⁴ The cargoes now moving were trapped by a war that began in late February. The Chinese-flagged VLCC Yuan Gui Yang loaded 2 million barrels of Iraqi Basrah crude on February 27, a day before the US-Israeli campaign against Iran started.² These are stranded barrels finding an exit, not a market returning to normal. On paper the strait is open. Iran has officially agreed to reopen Hormuz for safe passage, Argus Media reported, yet maritime traffic remains at a near-standstill because of insurance costs and new political demands.⁶ An open strait that owners will not sail is the trader's problem here. The economics explain the freeze. US-, UK- and Israeli-affiliated ships are reportedly being charged war-risk premiums as high as 5%, which on a $150m tanker means up to $7.5m in insurance for a single voyage, according to Argus.⁶ Iran, separately, is demanding transit fees of up to $2m per ship, payable in cryptocurrency or Chinese yuan.⁶ Set against the world's other chokepoints, those numbers are punitive. The Suez Canal charged around $800,000 for a supertanker in 2023, and Panama up to $300,000 a crossing, the Economist noted.³ More typical Hormuz tolls run $120,000 to $250,000 a vessel.³ A $2m demand stacked on multimillion-dollar insurance turns every voyage into a negotiation. Crude has carried the war premium. ICE Brent crude front-month topped $111 a barrel on Tuesday (2026-05-12), up 2.61% on the day, with the strait inaccessible for more than eight weeks and US-Iran talks stalled, OilPrice reported.⁷ By the Economist's account on 2026-05-19, Brent was trading nearer $95.³ Either way, the geopolitical bid has not left the curve. The stalemate has political roots. President Trump's rejection of Iran's response to a US peace proposal raised fears the 10-week conflict will drag on and keep paralysing the strait, lifting oil on Monday (2026-05-18), the Daily Asian Age reported.⁵ Among Tehran's demands: safe passage through Hormuz and security guarantees for the region and Lebanon.⁵ The scale of disruption is now being counted in lost cargo. More than 1 billion barrels have gone unshipped because of the closure, ADNOC chief Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber said on Wednesday (2026-05-20), with nearly 100 million more lost each week the strait stays shut.¹ The UAE has rerouted some exports through its pipeline to Fujairah, capacity 1.8 million barrels a day, and has built nearly half of a second bypass line.¹ Even a clean resolution would not flip the taps. Al Jaber warned it would take at least four months to ramp flows back to 80% of normal even if the conflict ended immediately.¹ Traders had expected disruptions to last days, not weeks, the Economist noted; the war has run far past that.⁸ Not every market reads it the same way. While the consensus across a dozen signals tilts bullish on crude, contrarian positioning leans bearish on European gas, with ICE Endex TTF front-month signals pointing lower on macro grounds.^7,8 Hormuz is overwhelmingly a crude and Asian-bound LNG story, and European gas balances are not hostage to it in the same way. The signal to watch is not the diplomatic noise but the count of hulls clearing the strait. Three supertankers in a day, against more than 90% of normal traffic still absent, is a thaw measured in single ships.^2,4 Until insurers cut premiums and the toll demands ease, an officially open Hormuz will keep behaving like a closed one.⁶