Skip to content
You can now search across every topic, entity and event.What's new
Iran Conflict 2026
21JUN

500 ships idle as Hormuz stays shut

3 min read
17:51UTC

Zero new tankers crossed Hormuz in the 24 hours after Trump's signature; more than 500 ships stayed anchored as Bimco called a crossing very risky.

ConflictDeveloping
Key takeaway

Brent priced an open strait that no tanker actually crossed; insurers still block transit.

Zero Hormuz tankers transited in the 24 hours after Trump's 16 June signature, despite his declaration that the strait was open. The two crossings logged on 15-16 June were toll passages under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) authority, Iran's military force that controls mine routes and passage conditions, not a reopening . More than 500 ships remain parked in The Gulf 1. BIMCO, the world's largest shipowner association, calls a crossing "very risky": the floating mines are still live, no IRGC order has cleared the lanes, and not one Protection and Indemnity (P&I) club, the London-based mutual marine insurers, has lifted its Hormuz war-risk exclusion 2.

The insurance point drives the lanes more than the mines do. A tanker without P&I cover cannot dock, because terminals and lenders refuse an uninsured hull. The blockade now runs through London insurance underwriters as much as through Iranian mines, and every owner knows it. Jakob Larsen, BIMCO's chief safety officer, said owners "still consider it very risky to commence transits at this point" while the mines stand uncleared.

Brent Crude, the global benchmark that prices roughly two-thirds of internationally traded oil, fell to between $78.82 and $81.55 on the signing, down as much as 5 per cent 3, near the two-month low it touched a week ago on deal optimism . Markets priced the expectation of an open strait. No moving ship lay behind the fall, because the lanes held zero new transits. The price moved; the cargo did not.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

When a ship sails through a war zone, it needs special war-risk insurance. The P&I clubs, mutual insurance associations based in London, provide this cover for roughly 90 per cent of the world's ships. They said on 16 June that the Hormuz strait is still too dangerous to cover, because Iranian military mines remain in the water and nobody has officially certified them as swept. Without that cover, a shipowner who loses a vessel in the strait cannot claim for the loss. No credible insurer will touch an active mine zone. This is why 500 ships are sitting in the Gulf, not because their owners do not want to move, but because sailing uninsured through an uncleared mine field is commercially and legally impossible.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

The 500-ship backlog and zero-transit outcome have two distinct root causes. The mine threat is physical: CENTCOM's own assessment by mid-May was that 90 per cent of Iran's naval mine stockpile was warehoused, not in-water, but the remaining deployed mines have not been certified as swept. Bimco's Jakob Larsen cited active mines as the primary safety barrier.

The P&I club constraint operates through the International Group of P&I Clubs, which covers roughly 90 per cent of the world's ocean-going tonnage. The group sets a collective de-risk bar that no individual member club can unilaterally lower without triggering reinsurance withdrawal by the London market. P&I clubs cannot issue standard hull and liability cover for a zone the Lloyd's Joint War Committee lists as enhanced-risk without a UN resolution or government certification of safety.

What could happen next?
  • Consequence

    P&I de-listing of Hormuz requires mine clearance certification or a UN resolution; the 60-day nuclear talks window does not address either condition.

  • Risk

    Oil markets pricing a reopening that has no ships behind it face a correction risk if Friday's ceremony also fails to produce mine clearance progress.

First Reported In

Update #130 · Trump signed the war over; it kept going

Argus Media· 17 Jun 2026
Read original
Different Perspectives
Hengaw
Hengaw
The Norway-based monitoring group reported the Urmia executions of Omid Behzad and Pouria Safvat, the only source to do so, consistent with its documented pattern of recording far more executions than the Iranian state acknowledges. Iran's government has not confirmed either execution.
Shipping and insurance underwriters
Shipping and insurance underwriters
War-risk premiums price the Houthi campaign because the group announces its targets in advance, but a reopening Trump has promised without a published text gives underwriters no benchmark to reprice Hormuz cover against. Insurers want a text before they move rates, not a promise.
Houthi movement
Houthi movement
Spokesman Yahya Saree claimed strikes on two tankers in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden on 5 August, only one of which UKMTO could confirm. The group's campaign against shipping continues on its own schedule, independent of any Hormuz arrangement further north.
Oman
Oman
Muscat has brokered the coordinates both Tehran and Washington's wire sources now describe differently, but has published no account of its own. Oman's position depends on treating Hormuz as a shared route, which is not what Iran is currently describing.
United States Central Command
United States Central Command
CENTCOM raised its interdiction tally from 35 to 44 redirected vessels and disclosed its first boardings on 3 August, the day before Trump promised a reopening. The command's own enforcement record does not yet reflect the release the President has described.
Iran's Foreign Ministry
Iran's Foreign Ministry
Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei described the agreed Hormuz coordinates as a wholly new corridor under Iranian management, not a split of the existing route, days after his own deputy rejected Oman's lane proposal. Tehran wants the arrangement read as a change of ownership, not a compromise on access.