Iran’s influence over the Strait of Hormuz appears to be weakening as commercial traffic through the vital energy chokepoint rebounds sharply, with vessel movements climbing nearly 400% in two weeks as more ships rely on a US-backed transit corridor.
Almost 200 ships passed through the strait last week, according to figures from the UK Maritime Trade Operations Center. That compares with 150 the week before and only about 40 vessels two weeks earlier.
The recent increase has lifted overall traffic on the route to roughly one-fifth of pre-war volumes. In peacetime, the Strait of Hormuz carried around 20% of the world’s seaborne oil shipments, making it one of the most strategically important waterways on the planet.
Shipping activity through Hormuz had slowed to a near standstill after the Iran war erupted in late February. Now, despite the continuing confrontation between Tehran and Washington, more vessels are choosing to make the crossing.
Maritime intelligence firm Kpler said more than 80% of liquid cargoes moving through the Strait of Hormuz in the past two weeks have either used the Omani route or gone “dark,” a term for switching off tracking systems. Analysts believe many of those dark vessels are likely using the same passage — a US-backed channel authorized by the UN International Maritime Organization but rejected by Iran.
“It increasingly looks like Iran has at least partially lost control of the strait,” Homayoun Falakshahi, Kpler’s head of crude oil analysis, told CNN this week.
Dan Pickering, founder of Pickering Energy Partners, said the Omani corridor offers a practical alternative for ship operators. “The Oman route absolutely makes the most sense,” he said, adding that it may help vessels avoid the prospect of paying a toll to Tehran.
In the past seven days alone, 103 ships entered the Strait of Hormuz while 89 left it. That marks a 27% increase from the prior week, when 76 ships entered and 75 exited.
The change is even more visible compared to two weeks ago — when just 18 ships entered and 21 ships exited the waterway at the center of the dispute between the warring countries.
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Most vessels that passed through were US-flagged allies from Panama and Liberia — though the flags merely indicate where the ships are registered, not where the companies that own them are based. About half of the ships were oil tankers and the other dry cargo.
Five vessels were struck by Iranian projectiles over the past week, leaving two people injured or dead. The ships were reportedly damaged but not lost.
The US has been quietly shepherding oil tankers across Hormuz since May, using shadow fleet tactics like turning off their radars to sneak by undetected and navigating close to the coast of Oman.
A 60-day period for talks to end the war came to a close on Monday, and start-and-stop discussions to negotiate control of the Strait of Hormuz have sputtered.
Earlier this week, President Trump said the strait had been fully de-mined and reopened, in hopes of clearing the way for traffic to gradually resume — and announced that he plans to implement the “most crushing economic operation ever undertaken” on Iran in the form of sanctions.
“The Hormuz Strait is open and operating,” he declared on Truth Social Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Iran’s security chief threatened the president with an “earthquake-like” retaliation against the US, which is about to unleash a set of new sanctions on Monday against the country.
“If Trump wants to take action, we will retaliate in an earthquake-like manner,” Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei said in a televised interview Saturday.
“We tell all the countries around us not to join the United States in its economic war, otherwise we will consider them enemies. If they cooperate with the Americans in the economic war, we will strike their interests.”
