First Tanker Exits Hormuz in Three Weeks as US-Iran Strikes Keep Traffic Near Zero
A single supertanker's Hormuz passage on July 23 offers fragile relief, but ongoing US-Iran strikes leave the strait's status contested and traffic historically thin.
The New Giant, a supertanker loaded with roughly 2 million barrels of Basrah crude, exited the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday (2026-07-23) — the first tanker crossing in nearly three weeks, according to Montel News.8,7
The passage came amid near-total commercial shutdown. Only one oil tanker transited Hormuz on that same Thursday (2026-07-23), the lowest crossing count since May 7, as war risks that week (week of 2026-07-20) pushed crude prices above $100 a barrel, OilPrice.com reported. The New Giant was that sole vessel. China's Rizhao port is expected to receive the cargo in mid-August, giving markets a rare data point on which physical barrels are actually moving.7
ICE Brent crude front-month was trading at $88.09 a barrel on Wednesday (2026-07-29), well off the triple-digit spike of the prior week, suggesting some escalation premium has drained. But the strait is far from normal functioning.7
The collapse in traffic traces back to May. On Thursday (2026-05-28), no commercial vessels at all were spotted transiting Hormuz, according to Rigzone, as tensions spiked following fresh US strikes. The pattern of near-zero traffic reasserting itself after each brief resumption points to a strait that has become structurally unreliable for commercial shipping, not merely temporarily disrupted.1
US-Iran hostilities have escalated in waves throughout the period. On Friday (2026-06-26) and Saturday (2026-06-27), the US Central Command conducted strikes following an Iranian attack on the vessel M/V Ever Lovely, after which Iran elected not to honor a ceasefire, according to reporting at the time. Tehran subsequently announced the strait would be closed "until further notice," a claim the US Central Command denied, as CNBCTV18 reported on July 13 (2026-07-13). The diverging official positions left tanker operators to judge for themselves — and most judged it not worth the risk.4,5
Qatari LNG had shown the same pattern earlier. Rigzone reported that the Al Daayen tanker made a transit over a June weekend, threading through tensions around a prospective peace deal. That deal did not hold. An LNG tanker trapped in the Persian Gulf for over three months appeared to be moving only as late as June 14 (2026-06-14), the Straits Times reported, after hopes briefly rose that the waterway might reopen.2,3
Saudi Aramco's response has been to work around the strait entirely. The company re-routed most shipments via Bab el-Mandeb and began offering crude loadings at Sidi Kerir, the Egyptian Mediterranean port, Reuters reported. That rerouting absorbs freight costs and transit time but removes Hormuz exposure from Aramco's immediate supply chain. How much Saudi production can permanently shift to the Red Sea route, and at what cost, remains unsettled for pricing.7
European markets have not been insulated. European natural gas futures added 2.5% in early July following a fresh round of US-Iran exchanges, CNBCTV18 reported for the week of June 29 (2026-06-29). ICE Endex TTF front-month was flat at €57.79 per megawatt-hour on Wednesday (2026-07-29), with THE M+1 at €58.28 per megawatt-hour, suggesting the immediate panic has eased somewhat. The Atlantic LNG arbitrage links Qatari and Gulf supply to European hub pricing, meaning any sustained Hormuz closure feeds directly into European gas balances.5
Asian LNG on the JKM benchmark was priced at $21.32 per MMBtu on Wednesday (2026-07-29), reflecting continued supply concern in a market acutely dependent on Gulf LNG flows through the strait. Qatar's Ras Laffan complex, the world's largest LNG export facility, sits inside the Persian Gulf. Every vessel that loads there must transit Hormuz to reach any destination beyond the Arabian Sea.2
The scale of the disruption is clearest in the numbers. War on the Rocks noted that on the eve of US-Israeli strikes on Iran, 56 tankers sailed through the strait in a single day. Two days later, Lloyd's List counted far fewer. The drop from 56 transits to near zero within 48 hours established the volatility range that operators are now working inside.6
Iran has separately announced the strait controls 20% of global energy supply and would remain closed "until further notice," a framing that CNBCTV18 reported on July 13 (2026-07-13) alongside the US Central Command's denial. Producers are not banking on a quick normalization: Aramco's Mediterranean loading offer at Sidi Kerir is the clearest signal of that. Any resumption of US-Iran strikes — which have followed a recurrent pattern throughout June and July — would likely push the one-transit-per-day figure back toward zero, taking crude and LNG prices with it.5,7,4