3JUN

Hormuz tanker count back to pre-war

2 min read

09:04UTC

Thirty-five tankers cleared the Strait of Hormuz on 2 July, the first pre-war-range count of the war, per Morgan Stanley data, as Brent held in the low $70s through the mourning week.

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Key takeaway

Hormuz tanker traffic is back to roughly normal numbers, easing war-risk premiums and steadying oil prices.

Thirty-five oil and gas tankers cleared the Strait of Hormuz on 2 July, the first time the daily vessel count has returned to its pre-war range, according to Morgan Stanley data cited by Al Jazeera ¹. the strait is a 33km channel carrying about a fifth of the world's traded oil, and the number of owners willing to make the passage tracks confidence more directly than any single day's throughput. That count is a different measure from the single-day record set on 25 June, when the strait moved 20 million barrels in 24 hours ; one counted barrels, this counts hulls.

Brent Crude held in the low $70s through the mourning week, essentially flat across three consecutive sessions of roughly 1% declines. Al Jazeera ties the drift to progress in US-Iran talks on maritime passage. Seven-day averages still sit below the same week last year, and the war premium that once pushed Brent above $116 has gone .

Thirty-five hulls in a single session say more than any ministerial claim about reopening, because insurers price war-risk cover off how many ships actually sail, not off a one-day barrel record. For a European or Asian buyer, that count moves the premium on each cargo, and those premiums feed straight through to the pump.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Thirty-five oil and gas tankers passed safely through the Strait of Hormuz on 2 July, matching the roughly 35-a-day rate that was normal before the war started in February. That sounds like good news, and Brent crude, the global oil price benchmark, has stayed calm in the low $70s through the week as a result. But normal ship traffic does not mean normal insurance. Many shipping companies sending vessels through are doing so without the standard war-risk cover that usually protects a tanker owner if it is attacked, because insurers and Iran's own transit rules still do not agree on the paperwork.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

London's Protection and Indemnity clubs cut hull war-risk premiums from a five per cent peak to around two per cent of vessel value by late June, but that remains twenty times the pre-conflict baseline of 0.1 per cent, so tankers transiting today pay an insurance cost structure that has not caught up with the traffic figures.

The US Development Finance Corporation's $40 billion Chubb-backed Hormuz reinsurance facility has had zero uptake since launch, blocked by the conflict between Iran's Persian Gulf Strait Authority registration requirement and OFAC compliance rules for London P&I clubs. That regulatory deadlock, not a lack of capital, is what keeps formal war-risk cover unavailable even as ships sail anyway.

What could happen next?

Consequence
A vessel count matching pre-war rates without matching insurance cover means individual shipowners, not the market as a whole, are absorbing the war-risk exposure on each transit.
Risk
Zero uptake on the $40 billion DFC-Chubb reinsurance facility leaves no formal backstop if a single high-profile strike interrupts the current run of calm transits.

Source Landscape

This story draws on centre-left-leaning sources from Qatar

Qatar

Primary parallel: Tanker traffic through the strait of Hormuz recovered to pre-war volumes within weeks of the 1988 Iran-Iraq War ceasefire, even though the underlying mine threat and the insurance market took years longer to normalise, the same lag now separating vessel counts from war-risk premiums.

Counter-parallel: Tanker traffic through the Suez Canal never recovered to pre-2023 levels after the Houthi Red Sea campaign began, even once individual convoys resumed transiting under naval escort, because insurers kept war-risk surcharges high enough to make the longer Cape of Good Hope route permanently cheaper for many operators.

Consensus view: S&P Global Commodity Insights assesses the 2 July count as backlog clearance rather than durable normalisation, since more than 500 vessels sat anchored in the Gulf as recently as mid-June and a single strong day can simply be that queue draining.

Counter-view: China's Ministry of Commerce points to the sustained China-bound share of Iranian crude, put by United Against Nuclear Iran at roughly $3.5 billion earned since the mid-June memorandum , as evidence Beijing's own tanker operators judge the corridor durably safe rather than merely temporarily clear.

Key tension: Whether the vessel count measures a genuine return of insurance-backed confidence, or simply the physical clearing of a queue built up during the worst weeks of restricted transit.

Sources:Al Jazeera

Mentions:China →Strait of Hormuz →Morgan Stanley →Al Jazeera →Brent Crude →Beijing →Cape of Good Hope →Iraq →Iran →Iran-Iraq War →Red Sea →

First Reported In

Update #146 · Iran's new leader wounded, not just hiding

Al Jazeera· 5 Jul 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Hormuz clears a record 20m barrels

The pre-war-range tanker count is a distinct hull-count confidence signal following the 25 June single-day barrel-volume record.

Occurred 25 Jun 2026

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Hormuz goes dark as tankers flee

The collapse to two transits a day reverses the near-pre-war rhythm of 35 tankers recorded 2 July.

Occurred 8 Jul 2026

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This Event

Hormuz tanker count back to pre-war

A full hull count, not a one-day barrel record, is what eases war-risk insurance and steadies petrol prices.

Led to

Brent jumps 6% as oil ends its shrug

The tankers that cleared Hormuz at pre-war rates on 2 July now move under a repriced threat level.

Occurred 8 Jul 2026

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Hormuz held severe as Guard herds ships

The brief pre-war-rate recovery on 2 July gives way to sustained SEVERE risk and forced northern routing.

Occurred 7 Jul 2026

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Different Perspectives

Shipping and war-risk insurers

War-risk premiums for Hormuz transits reached 3 to 10 per cent of hull value on 17 July, against 0.25 per cent before the war, as Brent cleared $87 and daily transits fell to eight vessels. Underwriters are pricing the confirmed UKMTO mine near the Traffic Separation Scheme, not the IRGC's unconfirmed 18 July mining claim, which CENTCOM called false.

Oman

Abbas Araghchi led an Iranian delegation to Oman-hosted talks in Muscat on 18 July, an agenda confined to reopening the Strait of Hormuz and nothing else. Oman's decades of studied neutrality make it the one channel neither Washington nor Tehran needs to be seen initiating, and that narrowness is what lets it survive the bombing.

Kuwait

Kuwait's electricity ministry asked residents to ration water and power after the IRGC set Shuaiba's generating units alight on 17 July, the second Kuwaiti site struck in two days. The country draws 90 per cent of its drinking water from plants sharing power infrastructure, so one strike reaches every tap in the hottest weeks of the year.

Jordan

Amman still reports no casualties or damage of its own from the 17 July attack even as CENTCOM confirmed two American dead on the same runway, a line it has not amended since. Hosting the base that produced the war's first US fatalities puts Jordan's decades-old defence arrangement with Washington under a domestic scrutiny it has not faced before.

Tehran / Artesh and AEOI

Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation called the alleged Darkhovin strike a violation of international law, while the Artesh put Operation Saeqeh, its campaign against Kuwait, Jordan and Bahrain, at phases 14 and 15 by 18 July. Domestic outlets Fars and Tabnak claim 16 Americans dead since February, a toll no source outside Iran supports.

CENTCOM / Washington

CENTCOM confirmed two dead and one missing at Muwaffaq Salti on 17 July, when Jordan says its air defences intercepted eight of ten incoming missiles, against five of five stopped on 10 June. Its own strikes stay aimed at Iran's coast, interior and navy, not the Artesh campaign that killed them.