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 Jazeera1. 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.
