Hormuz transits collapsed from 55 ships on 20 June to 12 on 22 June, a 78 per cent drop between those two days, with five of eight inbound vessels running with their automatic identification systems switched off 1. AIS transponders broadcast a ship's identity and position; switching them off hides the vessel. The maritime intelligence firm Windward called the pattern a "late-blockade baseline," closer to wartime dark-fleet running than a functioning open strait 2. The collapse fell on the very day General License X authorised the oil to move.
The larger 20 June traffic had run through Oman's territorial waters, the bypass route that has carried Gulf crude since the closure , and markets have consistently priced that Oman route over Iran's words . Brent Crude fell to about $78 a barrel on 22 June, its lowest since early March, pricing the 60-day relief rather than delivery: a permit to sell oil that only 12 ships actually moved.
The freight and spread economics of a dark, fee-charged corridor are the European oil desk's beat. A 78 per cent fall on the exact day the licence issued is the cleanest evidence that the bottleneck is mines and war-risk, not sanctions, so lifting the sanctions moved nothing on the water. GL X authorised a trade the strait cannot physically carry yet.
