{"id":128095,"date":"2026-03-19T10:35:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T13:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shipping.einnews.com\/article\/900436812"},"modified":"2026-03-19T10:35:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T13:35:20","slug":"95-shipping-drop-what-cargo-ships-are-passing-hormuz-strait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/2026\/03\/19\/95-shipping-drop-what-cargo-ships-are-passing-hormuz-strait\/","title":{"rendered":"95% shipping drop: What cargo ships are passing Hormuz strait?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Just a trickle of cargo ships and tankers — most of them Iranian — have made it through the Strait of Hormuz since Iranian forces blocked the crucial trade route in the Middle East war.<\/p>\n

Here are facts and figures about vessels that have passed through the 167-kilometre (104-mile) long strait since the war broke out with US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28.<\/p>\n

– 95% shipping drop –<\/span><\/h2>\n

From March 1 to 19, commodities carriers made just 114 crossings, according to analytics firm Kpler — a decrease of 95 percent from peacetime.<\/p>\n

Of these, 69 crossings were by oil tankers and more than half were loaded, Kpler data showed, with most travelling east out of the strait.<\/p>\n

Traffic \u201cis being led mostly by bulk carriers, tankers and container ships,\u201d said Richard Meade, editor of leading shipping intelligence journal Lloyd\u2019s List, in a briefing on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we have seen a bit of an uptick in gas carriers moving over the last week.\u201d<\/p>\n

– Iranian, Greek, Chinese ships –<\/span><\/h2>\n

Most of the ships passing the strait are owned or flagged in Iran, said Bridget Diakun, an analyst at data company Lloyd\u2019s List Intelligence.<\/p>\n

After that, Greek ships accounted for 18 percent of crossings and Chinese ones 10 percent in recent days, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough Iran is continuing to control the Strait and exit its own oil, everything else is largely still at a standstill,\u201d said Meade.<\/p>\n

– 35 sanctioned ships –<\/span><\/h2>\n

Overall since the war started, around a third of the ships transiting the strait were under US, EU or UK sanctions, according to an AFP analysis of passage data.<\/p>\n

Of the oil and gas tankers, more than half were under sanctions.<\/p>\n

Since March 16 \u201canything heading westbound has been shadow fleet, gas carriers or tankers… they absolutely dominate the traffic going through,\u201d Diakun told the Lloyds briefing.<\/p>\n

– Oil to China –<\/span><\/h2>\n

Commodities analysts at JPMorgan bank said in a report released Monday that most of the oil passing through the strait was headed for Asia, principally China.<\/p>\n

Data in the report indicated it was receiving more than a million barrels day from Hormuz — far below the pre-war level of nearly five million.<\/p>\n

Cichen Shen, Asia Pacific editor at Lloyd\u2019s List, said there were indications online that Chinese authorities were working on \u201csome sort of exit plan\u201d for their big tankers stuck in the region.<\/p>\n

– 1.3 mn barrels of Iran oil –<\/span><\/h2>\n

The JPMorgan analysts said overall 98 percent of the observable oil traffic through the strait was Iranian, averaging 1.3 million barrels a day \u201cin early March\u201d.<\/p>\n

A fifth of the world\u2019s oil and liquefied natural gas passes through the strait in peacetime.<\/p>\n

– Indian, Pakistani ships –<\/span><\/h2>\n

\u201cThere are indications that some ships are transiting under Iranian \u2018approval\u2019, with some vessels following a route through the Strait closer to the Iranian coastline than normal,\u201d including Indian and Pakistani vessels, marine consultancy Clarksons said in a note.<\/p>\n

Meade of Lloyds List added: \u201cSeveral governments, including China, but (also) India, Pakistan, Iraq, Malaysia, they\u2019re all in direct talks with Tehran, coordinating vessel transits\u201d with Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards.<\/p>\n

– Alternative routes surge –<\/span><\/h2>\n

Shipping companies are carving out other ways to get their cargos through the region. Major shipping firm CMA CGM said it was moving freight across Gulf countries by rail and road to avoid the strait.<\/p>\n

\u201cGulf maritime traffic patterns indicate early signs of global rebalancing,\u201d said marine intelligence group Windward in a report.<\/p>\n

In recent days transit volumes through the Bab el-Mandeb strait off east Africa surged 280 percent, and 70 percent through the Suez Canal, it said, indicating that \u201cshipping is adapting through alternative corridors.\u201d<\/p>\n

rlp\/jwp\/cw<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/strong> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… , editor of leading shipping<\/span> intelligence journal Lloyd … Shipping<\/span> companies are carving out other ways to get their cargos<\/span> … through the region. Major shipping<\/span> firm CMA CGM said it was moving freight<\/span> … said, indicating that \u00e2\u0080\u009cshipping<\/span> is adapting through …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128095\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}