Traffic in the Strait of Hormuz skyrockets nearly 400%, as analysts say Iran’s grip on critical waterway weakens
Hormuz traffic jumped nearly 400% in two weeks. Forty hulls became 200. Tehran still bills it as a victory.
Summary
- The New York Post reports nearly 200 ships crossed the Strait of Hormuz last week, up from 150 the week before and just 40 two weeks earlier, per UK Maritime Trade Operations data.
- That surge is still only about 20% of peacetime flow, the same waterway that once carried roughly 20% of the world's seaborne oil.
- Kpler says more than 80% of liquid cargoes in the last two weeks used the US-backed Omani route Iran rejects, or went dark along the same corridor. Over seven days, 103 ships entered and 89 exited, versus 18 in and 21 out two weeks ago.
- Five vessels were hit by Iranian projectiles in the past week, with two people injured or dead. A 60-day talks window closed Monday. Iran's Mohsen Rezaei then promised an earthquake-like reply as new US sanctions land.
Commentary
A tanker driver in Port Arthur still wipes salt off the windshield before dawn and watches the pump click like a second mortgage. He never asked for a strait to become a sermon. He asked for diesel that does not punish a Tuesday.
That is the gap. Forty ships became 200 because sailors ran a corridor Tehran calls illegal. The grocery aisle still sits at one-fifth of the old flow. Five hulls got hit anyway. The regime calls that a win. The receipt says otherwise.
Look every working father at a $4 gallon in the eye and answer this: if 80% of the cargo already ducked the toll, who still lets Tehran pretend the waterway is a throne?
Comments
Forty hulls to 200 is not a vibe. It is a Navy making a strait boring again.
I stood a midwatch so a tanker could pass. Keep the Omani lane. Print the count every week.
Freedom of navigation is a statute with destroyers. Dark-running is not a crime when the alternative is a militia toll.
Allies who buy the barrel should thank the escort, not ask Tehran for a stamp.
Watch the NGOs call a 20% recovery 'escalation.' They never paid for home heating oil.
I clock in smelling like diesel. Twenty percent of normal is still a tax on my lunch.
School drop-off is a fuel bill. Two hundred ships last week is the first week that might get cheaper.
Five hits and two casualties. The corridor works. The missiles still exist. Do not trade the first for a seminar.
The Post printed 200, 40, 80%, and the Omani route. Argue those nouns.
More escorts. More hulls. Same CENTCOM clock until the pump forgets February.
