IMO-led evacuation plan for Hormuz signals months of gridlock, not a path back to normal
A multinational operation to free hundreds of trapped tankers confirms the strait is still far from functioning as a normal shipping lane.
An international coalition on Tuesday (2026-06-23) announced a large-scale plan to free hundreds of ships trapped around the Strait of Hormuz. The operation, developed by the UN-chartered International Maritime Organization and backed by the U.S., Iran, Oman and other Gulf countries, requires a coordinated, multinational response of a scale normally reserved for wartime evacuations.8
The evacuation plan is a de facto admission that the waterway carrying roughly a fifth of global oil consumption remains badly clogged, months after Iran first threatened to close it in response to U.S. and Israeli strikes that began on Feb. 28. Partial diplomatic progress has not translated into normal shipping conditions.7,8
Iran declared the strait closed on Thursday (2026-06-11) after a fresh round of U.S. strikes, and ICE Brent crude front-month climbed 2.26% to trade at $95.20 per barrel, with NYMEX WTI up 2.5% at $92.30.4 Yet hours after that closure declaration, U.S. Central Command reported on Saturday (2026-06-20) that safe passage remained intact, with 55 merchant ships transiting and moving more than 17 million barrels of cargo.6
The result is a strait that is, as one industry observer put it, half-open and half-closed. Contradictory messaging from Tehran and Washington on navigability has kept traders whipsawing since the two sides announced a deal to make a deal in the week of 2026-06-15, with traffic not expected to normalise within days.6
Washington has framed the partial traffic flow as a victory. President Trump said the U.S. operation had allowed 100 million barrels of oil to slip through the Iranian cordon, which would amount to about 2.5 million barrels a day since the start of May, or roughly one-sixth of the prewar total.5
But the mechanics behind those numbers tell a different story. The industry assumption is that ships have either secured passage through diplomatic leverage — boats tied to Pakistan seemingly getting through — or have paid off the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps directly, at a going rate said to be around $2 million a tanker.2 Foreign Policy reported that the Trump administration borrowed Russia's shadow fleet tactics to keep cargoes moving, an approach that reroutes ships but does nothing to restore transparent, predictable pricing for passage.5
Iran analyst Gregory Brew at Eurasia Group said the partial reopening is not a return to business as usual. "We're nowhere close to being there yet," he said. "There's always been scope for ships to sneak out."5
One potential mechanism for managing traffic has already been ruled out. President Trump in late May rejected a plan that would see Oman and Iran jointly charge a toll for transiting vessels, threatening harsh consequences for the U.S. ally if it followed through on discussions reportedly held with Tehran.3 That left the ad-hoc system of diplomatic passes and IRGC payoffs as the dominant operating model.
Emergency supply releases have provided some buffer. IEA members agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil stocks to ease supply constraints, and executive director Fatih Birol signalled the agency would act again if needed.1 "Four hundred million barrels is only 20% of our resource," he said. "We have still 80% in our pocket."1
Alternative routing options are thin. Iraq's government and Kurdish regional leaders hastily agreed to reopen the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, which can carry 250,000 barrels a day — a fraction of normal strait volumes.2
ICE Brent crude front-month settled at $82.38 per barrel as of August 8 and NYMEX WTI at $77.08, well off the $95 levels seen when Iran declared closure in June — a gap that reflects both IEA releases and the partial resumption of traffic rather than any return to pre-conflict conditions.4
The IMO plan has Tehran's backing, which gives it more standing than prior ad-hoc arrangements. But Iran retains the ability to shut the waterway again on short notice, and the toll question — who charges what for passage, and through what mechanism — remains entirely unresolved. Until a durable answer emerges, the patchwork of diplomatic passes and IRGC payments is what stands between crude markets and another closure.8,3