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European Oil Markets
4JUN

Two US carriers stay, blockade runs on

3 min read
10:20UTC

The USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS George H.W. Bush remained on station in the Gulf as of 18 June, the blockade still redirecting vessels, despite the memorandum's clause that it be removed immediately.

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Key takeaway

Two carriers on station are the proof the order to lift the blockade never reached the fleet.

Two US carrier strike groups, built around the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS George H.W. Bush, remained on station in the Gulf region as of 17-18 June 1. CENTCOM (US Central Command), the US military command for the Middle East, has issued no drawdown order, and the naval blockade continues to redirect vessels, despite the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) clause that the blockade be "removed immediately."

The blockade is the apparatus that has throttled Iranian seaborne trade through the war, turning the strait into a corridor ships transit only on US sufferance. Trump signed the MOU and ordered the blockade lifted on 16 June , but CENTCOM kept it running pending a signed instrument it has not received. The carriers on station are the physical evidence that the order has not reached the water.

The shipping industry reads operations, not press releases. Insurers, mine-clearance crews and tanker owners need an on-water change before commercial transits resume; a memorandum does not move a hull. Hormuz logged zero new tanker transits the day after Trump signed . The Geneva signing ceremony was scrapped, and Baghaei confirmed the text was finalised electronically, the presidents' signatures applied digitally rather than at any podium.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Think of the naval blockade as a lock on a gate that is run by one department and the key as a different document held by another department. When the US President signed the Islamabad MOU, he was handing over a promise to unlock the gate. But the military commanders operating the lock need a separate written order from the Defence Department before they can actually turn the key. As of 18 June, that order had not arrived. So both aircraft carriers, the Abraham Lincoln and the George H.W. Bush, stayed in position, redirecting ships just as before. The gate remained locked. Separately, the sea still has live floating mines in it. Even if the lock were opened, no commercial ship would sail through a minefield without a guarantee that the mines had been removed.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

The blockade-stays problem has a structural cause independent of politics: the CENTCOM enforcement mechanism runs on a separate chain of command from the diplomatic track that produced the MOU. Trump signed the MOU as the US executive; the blockade is operationalised by CENTCOM via the Secretary of Defense chain. Without a National Security Council decision memo, a SecDef order, and a CENTCOM operational directive, the blockade runs by default.

Mine-clearance progress also blocks the blockade lift. Hormuz was still seeded with active mines on 18 June. BIMCO and the International Chamber of Shipping have stated publicly that commercial vessels will not transit an uncleared minefield regardless of what a ceasefire agreement says. The operational prerequisite for the blockade lift, cleared lanes, does not yet exist.

What could happen next?
  • Risk

    An incident between an on-station carrier and an IRGC vessel, as happened on 15 June with the 'last warning' radio transmission, could escalate to an exchange of fire that voids the MOU before the 19 June ceremony.

    Immediate · Reported
  • Consequence

    The carrier stay gives Iran a public talking point: the US blockade continues despite the signed MOU, symmetrically matching Iran's own non-compliance on Lebanon.

    Short term · Assessed
  • Precedent

    If the blockade does not begin to lift within seven days of signing, insurers will treat the MOU as a rhetorical instrument rather than an operational change, maintaining war-risk exclusions and keeping effective transit near zero.

    Short term · Assessed
Sources:Al Jazeera·The War Zone
Mentions:CENTCOM (US Central Command) →Esmaeil Baqaei →Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding →Vietnam →Islamabad →Geneva →The War Zone →Paris →North Korea →Pentagon →USS Abraham Lincoln →USS George H.W. Bush →
First Reported In

Update #131 · Iran deal's first death tests the text

Al Jazeera· 18 Jun 2026
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Causes and effects
Caused by
Trump signed Hormuz open; war ran on
Trump signed the MOU and ordered the blockade lifted but CENTCOM received no signed drawdown instrument, leaving the carriers on station.
Occurred 16 Jun 2026
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This Event
Two US carriers stay, blockade runs on
Insurers and shippers need an on-water change, not a memorandum, before tankers move.
Led to
Oil prices a Hormuz reopening that has not happened
Brent pricing a blockade lift that two on-station carrier strike groups and no CENTCOM drawdown order refute.
Occurred 18 Jun 2026
Read story →
The carriers that did not leave
The USS Abraham Lincoln and George H.W. Bush holding station on 18 June (event 8) continued the posture already established per ID:4308 with still no drawdown order issued.
Occurred 18 Jun 2026
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Different Perspectives
Kuwait
Kuwait
Kuwait absorbed the Iranian strike that knocked generating units offline at a combined power-and-desalination plant on 17 July, the event that finally moved freight and insurance in lockstep with Brent. The strike hit essential civilian infrastructure, not a trading desk's benchmark.
Asian buyers (Singapore)
Asian buyers (Singapore)
Singapore's middle distillates rose 12% month-to-date to 8.91m barrels and fuel oil passed 19m barrels on a 105% net-import surge, buyers retaining barrels as the East-West arbitrage window narrows. Cargoes are being stockpiled ahead of further Hormuz-driven freight repricing rather than released west.
Austria (Coreper holdout)
Austria (Coreper holdout)
Vienna is blocking the same package over roughly EUR 2bn of frozen Russian assets earmarked for Raiffeisen, a domestic banking dispute with no connection to the oil cap racing toward its 23 July expiry. The linkage forces the whole package to wait on a bilateral compensation fight.
Greece (Coreper holdout)
Greece (Coreper holdout)
Athens is holding the 21st sanctions package at the 22 July Coreper vote over Russian LNG re-export rights, a condition unrelated to the oil price cap itself, leaving the $44.10 freeze one day from expiry without a deal. Greece's own tanker registry gives it a direct stake in how any shadow-fleet measures are drafted.
Marine underwriters (Gulf war-risk)
Marine underwriters (Gulf war-risk)
Hull war-risk cover for Hormuz transits widened to a 3-10% band on 17 July with 5% the emerging norm, up from a 3-4% baseline set in late June, the first repricing in six weeks to track a flat-price move rather than lag it. Cover resets on actuarial evidence of loss, not on diplomatic or price signals.
Money managers (CFTC-tracked)
Money managers (CFTC-tracked)
The CFTC's week-to-14-July snapshot, released 17 July, showed WTI managed-money net long collapsing 69% to 19,783 contracts and a standalone 60,141-contract net short on Brent Last Day (NYMEX). Both readings predate the Kuwait strike and the 20 July escalation, so any covering since is not yet visible in public data.