Hormuz Traffic Quadruples as Fee Fight Hardens
Ship transits through the Strait of Hormuz have quadrupled over the past week as tankers cautiously return under the ceasefire. The fight over charging for passage is hardening into the central question: an Iranian-Omani fee plan is on the table, European capitals are reported to be resigned to some form of charge, and Washington insists free navigation is non-negotiable — while Tehran’s military warns that ships defying its designated routes face a “forceful response”. Brent held near $72 in thin holiday trade.
The strait carried roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied gas before the war, so a negotiated toll would rewrite the economics of energy shipping — which is why Washington has been offering inducements rather than concessions, and why Tehran, holding the leverage the war gave it, will not drop the demand. Traffic recovering towards the pre-war norm of about 130 transits a day is the market voting that the ceasefire holds. The next negotiating round in Doha waits for the funeral rites to end on 9 July. Watch whether tanker owners quietly follow Iranian routing instructions in the interim — compliance would concede the principle before diplomats do.