The Joint Maritime Information Center (JMIC), run through UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), held the Strait of Hormuz at a SEVERE threat level through 7 July in its Advisory Note Update 068.1 JMIC is the body that issues Gulf maritime threat ratings to merchant shipping, and at severe, marine underwriters price each transit as a live war-risk exposure. Commercial traffic still runs through both the widened southern Omani corridor and the northern Iranian-controlled route.
Vessels transiting with Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponders switched on may be hailed and warned to divert to the northern route, the advisory said, and IRGC hailing has intensified to enforce that flow.2 AIS is the shipboard transponder that broadcasts a vessel's identity and position, so leaving it on is what lets the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) pick out and redirect ships. Mine-risk reporting remains live within and adjacent to the Traffic Separation Scheme, the marked deep-water lanes that keep inbound and outbound tankers apart.
the strait had briefly recovered. Thirty-five tankers exited it at pre-war levels on 2 July before the IRGC suspended and re-policed its corridors. The sanctioned diversion now pushes vessels into water Iran controls, at the moment Washington has closed the legal channel for selling the cargo, so a single mine incident inside the northern lanes would test whether the widened southern corridor can absorb the diverted traffic at all.
