27JUL

Hormuz: 19 transits, no LNG; ALSI bounce was Atlantic

4 min read

10:27UTC

Windward Maritime Intelligence counted 19 Hormuz crossings on Saturday 25 April, all with AIS active, none of them LNG carriers. GIE ALSI terminal inventory rose 318 kt across 24-25 April, consistent with one or two Atlantic arrivals, not the 14 Hormuz-queued cargoes flagged in update #291.

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Key takeaway

Hormuz recorded zero LNG transits on 25 April; the 318 kt EU terminal bounce came from the Atlantic, not Qatar.

Windward Maritime Intelligence counted 19 Hormuz crossings on Saturday 25 April, all with AIS (Automatic Identification System, the maritime transponder protocol) active, none of them LNG carriers ¹. Iran's 18 April re-closure and the 22 April seizures of the Epaminondas and MSC Francesca have not reversed despite the Trump ceasefire extension at Pakistan's request on 21 April .

Hormuz carries roughly one fifth of seaborne global LNG in normal conditions, with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates as the principal exporters; the strait's status sets the floor on Atlantic basin pricing through arbitrage. The AIS active detail matters because tankers running dark are the indicator for sanctions evasion or re-flagging activity around Russian-origin cargo; nineteen open transponders this Saturday says the chokepoint is closed to LNG by Iranian action, not by carrier-side risk aversion.

GIE ALSI (Aggregated LNG Storage Inventory, the EU LNG terminal inventory feed) rose 318 kt across Friday 24 April and Saturday 25 April to 5,071 kt, consistent with one or two Atlantic cargo arrivals ². That bounce is well short of the 14 Hormuz-queued cargoes flagged in update #291. Total terminal stock remains 696 kt below the 5,766 kt baseline of 13 April . The watch-for that #291 left open on Hormuz cargo discharge into European terminals is unresolved; the bounce came from US Gulf loadings and Trinidad flows, not from Qatari volumes resuming. For procurement teams running through-summer LNG hedges, that is the operative supply geography until Iran's posture changes.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow sea passage between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Around 20% of global LNG supplies transit through it. Iran has closed the strait to LNG carrier ships since 18 April, following conflict with the United States. On 25 April, 19 ships crossed the strait, but none of them were LNG tankers. European LNG import terminals received an increase of 318,000 tonnes of inventory that day, but this came from ships arriving from the Atlantic Ocean (United States, West Africa, Trinidad), not from the Gulf. The 14 LNG ships reported to be waiting in the Gulf on 17 April have still not moved. Europe's LNG terminal inventory remains 696,000 tonnes below where it was on 13 April.

Deep Analysis

Escalation

The 22 April seizures of Epaminondas and MSC Francesca, combined with zero LNG transits on 25 April despite the Trump ceasefire extension, indicate Iran is maintaining selective closure as a negotiating instrument rather than incrementally escalating toward full commercial interdiction. The trajectory is stable-closed rather than escalating-toward-open.

What could happen next?

Risk
If 14 queued Hormuz LNG cargoes divert to Asian buyers rather than wait for opening, EU terminals lose those volumes permanently from Q2 supply, widening the ALSI deficit to approximately 1,670 kt below the 13 April baseline.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources from Israel

Israel

Primary parallel: The 1970s Suez Canal closures (1956-1957 and 1967-1975) established the structural precedent for how LNG shipping adapts to route interdiction: extended closure does not reduce demand but re-routes supply, extending voyage times by 15-30% and reducing effective tanker capacity by the same margin.

The 25 April ALSI bounce of 318 kt consistent with one or two Atlantic arrivals is exactly the market behaviour documented in the 1970s Suez literature: cargo arrivals from alternative route origins replace the blocked route, but at lower frequency and higher cost.

Counter-parallel: The 2003 US-Iraq War disruption to Gulf shipping lasted only 23 days before CENTCOM established marine corridors, and LNG tanker transits normalised within four weeks. The 2026 closure is already beyond that precedent at day 37, with no CENTCOM marine corridor for LNG carriers established.

The 696 kt deficit between current ALSI (5,071 kt) and the 13 April baseline (5,766 kt) represents approximately 10 days of average EU LNG regasification throughput at 2026 rates. At EUR 44.86/MWh TTF and an average LNG cargo size of 70,000 metric tonnes, the 696 kt deficit has a replacement cost of approximately EUR 240m at spot.

The 14 Hormuz-queued cargoes represent approximately 980,000 metric tonnes (at 70,000 t average). If those cargoes reach European terminals, they would push ALSI back above the 13 April baseline within two to three unloading cycles, providing a temporary TTF downward pressure of EUR 1-2/MWh. If they are diverted to Asian buyers or remain queued indefinitely, the deficit widens through Q2.

Consensus view: Energy Intelligence's Haik Gugarats assessed that Hormuz LNG closure beyond 90 days historically produces a freight premium of $0.80-1.20/MMBtu on Atlantic spot LNG as Asian buyers compete directly with European buyers for non-Gulf cargoes.

The 25 April data point, zero LNG transits, 19 non-LNG crossings, Atlantic inventory bounce of 318 kt, is consistent with day 37 of an effective LNG closure, placing the market at the outer edge of the 30-60 day freight premium absorption window identified in the post-Suez closure literature.

Counter-view: OPEC Secretariat modelling (Vienna, April 2026) has argued that Iran's selective closure, allowing non-LNG vessels AIS-active transit while targeting LNG carriers, reflects a strategic calibration to avoid triggering the US military response threshold, rather than a full strait interdiction.

Under that reading, the selective closure is sustainably partial and the 14 Hormuz-queued LNG cargoes may never transit at current freight economics, but the 19 daily non-LNG crossings indicate Iran is not pursuing total economic closure.

Key tension: Whether the Trump ceasefire extension has extended the selective-closure equilibrium indefinitely, or whether the queued 14 LNG cargoes represent a deferred market tightening event when Hormuz eventually reopens and all 14 reload into Atlantic flows simultaneously.

First Reported In

Update #5 · Ban day muted; Germany doubles injection rate

Windward· 26 Apr 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

IRGC seizes Epaminondas and MSC Francesca

The Epaminondas and MSC Francesca seizures in ID:2687 are the most recent acts of closure that Windward's 25 April zero-LNG-transit count measures as still unreversed.

Occurred 22 Apr 2026

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Trump extends Iran ceasefire at Pakistan request

Trump's ceasefire extension in ID:2688 did not reverse the Hormuz LNG closure confirmed by Windward's 25 April data.

Occurred 21 Apr 2026

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EU LNG terminals drew 163kt in three days

The ALSI terminal inventory on 25 April (5,071 kt) is 696 kt below the 13 April baseline tracked in ID:2423, confirming the Hormuz-driven drawdown continues.

Occurred 13 Apr 2026

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This Event

Hormuz: 19 transits, no LNG; ALSI bounce was Atlantic

The maritime data forecloses the most optimistic Hormuz reading: a fortnight after Iran's re-closure, no LNG transit has resumed, and the European inventory bounce came from the western basin.

Different Perspectives

Asian buyers (India, Japan, China, South Korea)

Asian refiners are absorbing 62% of Yanbu's 3.75m b/d flow, the bulk of Saudi Arabia's rerouted crude now clearing east rather than into the Atlantic basin. That destination split leaves Asian buyers more exposed to any single Yanbu-specific disruption than under the kingdom's normal multi-terminal export pattern.

Russia / Lukoil

Moscow loses the roughly $14-a-barrel legal headroom the frozen price-cap formula would otherwise have released toward $58, even as Urals trades below Russia's own $59 budget floor. The shadow-fleet insurance workaround the freeze leaves untouched remains the actual route sanctioned crude clears above $44 in practice.

European Union / Council

Brussels adopted its 21st sanctions package on 23 July, letting boarding states confiscate and sell shadow-fleet cargo outright and freezing the G7 price cap's automatic adjustment to mid-2027, converting indefinite tanker storage into recoverable value for enforcers.

Freight and tanker desks

The Baltic Exchange's TD3C VLCC benchmark, most desks' reference for Gulf freight, prices a single-vessel voyage while Saudi shippers now pay for two Suezmax charters at roughly double the transit time. That gap leaves any book hedged purely on TD3C carrying unrecognised Suezmax basis risk on the bulk of Saudi rerouted volume.

Mediterranean refiners (Sines, Trieste, Augusta)

Refiners already facing aframax rates up 198% month-on-month now watch Ain Sokhna draw 23% of Yanbu's rerouted crude through the same SUMED corridor they lean on for product backfill. Fujairah and ARA stocks near record lows leave little room to absorb a thinner Suez product flow.

Saudi Arabia

Riyadh has rerouted its entire western-coast crude book through Yanbu and Suez since the 23 July Bab el-Mandeb embargo, absorbing a roughly $2m-per-voyage Suezmax premium on every diverted cargo. The kingdom's fiscal breakeven near $108 a barrel makes that freight cost, not the blockade itself, the more durable drag on export economics.