4MAR

Maersk and CMA CGM halt Hormuz transits

2 min read

11:29UTC

Six of the world's biggest shipping companies have suspended all Hormuz transits after three tankers were attacked in 72 hours — a faster escalation than the entire 1984–88 Tanker War.

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ConflictDeveloping

CMA CGM, Maersk, Nippon Yusen, Mitsui, and Kawasaki Kisen have halted all transits through the Strait of Hormuz. They join Hapag-Lloyd, which suspended operations within hours of the IRGC's VHF Channel 16 broadcast declaring the strait closed to shipping . Six of the world's largest shipping companies — controlling roughly half of global container capacity — now refuse to send vessels through the passage that carries approximately 20% of the world's traded oil.

The suspensions followed three direct attacks on commercial tankers near the strait: the MV Skylight struck off Oman with four crew injured, the MKD Vyom hit by a projectile that ignited an engine room fire, and the Sea La Donna, details still pending. Oil tankers had already begun avoiding the strait after the opening strikes . The physical attacks converted commercial caution into a full shutdown. Vessel traffic has fallen 70%, with more than 150 tankers anchored in open Gulf waters.

The last sustained military campaign against commercial shipping in these waters was the 1984–88 Tanker War during the Iran-Iraq conflict, which struck 546 vessels over four years. Three have been hit here in 72 hours. When Houthi attacks disrupted Red Sea shipping in 2024, carriers rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope — costly, but viable. The Strait of Hormuz has no such bypass. Saudi Arabia's East-West Pipeline and the UAE's Habshan-Fujairah pipeline provide limited overland alternatives, but their combined capacity covers a fraction of normal seaborne Gulf exports.

Every day of closure tightens supply across refineries in Asia and Europe that depend on Gulf crude. Brent opened Saturday at $82.37 (ID:108), up from the pre-strike price of $73 . Goldman Sachs projected a peak of $110 per barrel; JP Morgan forecast $120–130 if the conflict is prolonged and raised its US recession probability to 35% (ID:111). With commercial vessels now under direct fire rather than merely pausing, the prolonged-conflict scenario is the one unfolding.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

The companies did not need to be ordered to stop — insurance requirements and duty-of-care obligations to crews left them little practical choice once vessels began being struck. This is a commercial mechanism, not a political one: governments cannot simply instruct carriers to resume without resolving the underlying threat.

Deep Analysis

Synthesis

Iran has achieved the strategic effect of a blockade without physically closing the strait — the carrier suspensions did that. The burden now falls on governments: naval escorts (escalatory), ceasefire (stalled), or absorbing prolonged supply disruption. Gulf oil-producing states face a simultaneous revenue crisis, giving them independent incentive to pressure both parties towards resolution — an actor not yet prominent in diplomatic reporting.

Root Causes

Suspensions are driven by war-risk insurance requirements — which may refuse cover above a defined threat threshold — combined with duty-of-care obligations to crews. Hapag-Lloyd's early suspension likely acted as a coordination signal: once one major carrier exits, competitors can justify the same decision to shareholders and insurers more easily, producing collective action faster than individual commercial logic would suggest.

Escalation

Naval convoy deployment would make the strait operationally a military corridor — the dynamic the Tanker War produced, culminating in the re-flagging of Kuwaiti tankers under the US flag in 1987, a politically costly commitment requiring sustained naval presence. The current US posture is offensive, not convoy protection, making that transition both harder to execute and more escalatory to announce.

What could happen next?

2 consequence2 risk1 precedent

Consequence
With the world's largest carriers suspended, the effective closure of Hormuz to commercial traffic is already achieved through voluntary withdrawal, making the strategic impact of a formal Iranian blockade declaration largely redundant.
Immediate · Assessed
Risk
Pressure will mount on the US and allied navies to provide armed escorts for commercial vessels attempting Hormuz transits, risking direct military confrontation with Iranian naval or IRGC maritime forces in the strait.
Short term · Suggested
Consequence
Emergency surcharges and freight rate spikes will flow through global supply chains within weeks, raising the delivered cost of goods across all economies that import via Hormuz.
Short term · Assessed
Precedent
The collective voluntary withdrawal of commercial carriers from a major international strait under military threat — without governmental compulsion — establishes that economic coercion through targeted anti-shipping operations is an effective strategy with disproportionate effect.
Long term · Assessed
Risk
Gulf oil-producing states face an acute revenue crisis if they cannot export their primary commodity, creating incentives for them to exert independent pressure on the US towards a ceasefire or to offer financial inducements to commercial operators to resume transits under risk.
Short term · Suggested

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources from United States

United States

CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, and Maersk together control approximately 50% of global container shipping capacity.

For tanker operators, war-risk premium spikes at 1-2% per voyage of a $100 million VLCC add approximately $1-2 million per cargo — a cost compounding on the Brent spot price movement and separate from it.

Under UNCLOS, commercial vessels retain the right of transit passage through international straits — but that right has no practical value when war-risk premiums make exercising it commercially unviable.

Chatham House and Oxford Institute for Energy Studies modelling consistently finds that the primary transmission mechanism to global oil prices is precautionary operator behaviour, not physical supply loss — precisely the mechanism now operating.

First Reported In

Update #7 · Hezbollah enters; tankers burn in Hormuz

gCaptain· 2 Mar 2026

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Causes and effects

This Event

Maersk and CMA CGM halt Hormuz transits

The suspension by CMA CGM, Maersk, Nippon Yusen, Mitsui, Kawasaki Kisen, and Hapag-Lloyd means roughly half of global container shipping capacity now refuses to transit the waterway carrying 20% of the world's traded oil. Unlike the Red Sea, where Cape of Good Hope rerouting was possible during Houthi disruptions, no viable maritime bypass exists for Gulf hydrocarbon exports.

Led to

Three P&I clubs pull Gulf war risk cover

Major shipping lines halting Hormuz transits signalled risk level that triggered P&I insurance cancellation

Occurred 3 Mar 2026

Read story →

Different Perspectives

South Korean financial markets

South Korea, which imports virtually all its crude oil, is absorbing the war's economic transmission most acutely among non-belligerents. The second KOSPI circuit breaker in four sessions — with Samsung down over 10% and SK Hynix down 12.3% — reflects an industrial economy unable to reprice energy costs that have risen 72% in ten days. The market response indicates Korean industry cannot sustain oil above $100 per barrel without margin compression across manufacturing, semiconductors, and shipping.

Migrant worker communities in the Gulf

The first confirmed civilian deaths in Saudi Arabia — one Indian and one Bangladeshi killed, twelve Bangladeshis wounded — fell on communities with no voice in the military decisions that placed them in harm's way. Migrant workers live near military installations because that housing is affordable, not by choice. Bangladesh and India face the dilemma of needing to protect nationals who cannot easily leave a war zone while depending on Gulf remittances that fund a substantial share of their domestic economies.

Azerbaijan — President Ilham Aliyev

Aliyev treats the Nakhchivan strikes as a direct act of war against Azerbaijani sovereignty, placing armed forces on full combat readiness and demanding an Iranian explanation. The response is calibrated to maximise international sympathy while stopping short of military retaliation — Baku cannot fight Iran alone and needs either Turkish or NATO backing to credibly deter further strikes.

Oil-importing nations (Japan, South Korea, India)

The Hormuz closure is an existential threat. Japan, South Korea, and India receive the majority of their crude through the strait — they will bear the heaviest economic cost of a war they had no part in.

Global South governments (Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa)

Neutrality was possible when the targets were military. 148 dead schoolgirls made it impossible — no government can explain that away to its own citizens.

Turkey

Has absorbed three Iranian ballistic missile interceptions since 4 March without invoking NATO Article 5 consultation. Each incident narrows Ankara's political room to continue absorbing without Alliance-level response.