Strait Of Hormuz Remains Effectively Closed As Six-Month Iran Crisis Grinds Into September Amid Tanker Attacks

MUSCAT, Oman — More than six months after fighting first erupted between the United States, Israel and Iran, the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed to commercial shipping, with vessel traffic through the vital oil chokepoint continuing to run at a small fraction of its pre-crisis levels as of Friday.

According to Straits.live, an independent tracker monitoring the waterway's status in real time, the Strait of Hormuz was operating at effectively closed status as of Sept. 5, with just six ships transiting the passage on Aug. 30, compared with a pre-crisis baseline of roughly 85 vessels per day. Windward, a maritime intelligence firm, separately recorded only eight vessels crossing the strait during a 24-hour window earlier this week, with five of those ships reportedly operating with their transponders switched off, a practice commonly referred to as "going dark" to avoid detection.

The current crisis traces back to Feb. 28, when the United States and Israel launched joint military operations against Iran, prompting Tehran to assert control over the Strait of Hormuz through both threatened and actual attacks on commercial shipping. The narrow waterway, just 34 kilometers, or 21 miles, wide at its narrowest point and separating Iran from Oman, carried roughly 25% of the world's seaborne oil trade and 20% of global liquefied natural gas shipments before the conflict began, according to congressional research.

The human toll of the crisis has continued mounting. According to tracking compiled on the crisis, at least 20 seafarers and one port worker have been killed since fighting began, with 35 additional people injured and one person still listed as missing.

Violence against commercial vessels has continued even in recent days. Saudi Arabia's Foreign Ministry confirmed this week that Iran targeted the Sidr, an oil tanker owned by Saudi national carrier Bahri, while it was transiting the strait, an attack that killed the vessel's chief engineer. Saudi officials condemned the strike and called for an end to the escalating violence.

"The kingdom stressed the necessity of halting escalations, and respecting international maritime safety and the security of global energy supplies," the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Kuwait and Qatar's foreign ministries separately condemned the attack on the Sidr, with Qatar describing it as a "flagrant violation of the rules of international law and freedom of maritime navigation" and explicitly rejecting the use of the strait as what it called a "bargaining chip" in the broader conflict.

The United States escalated its own military response this week, striking Iranian government tankers directly for the first time since the conflict began. According to Axios, U.S. Central Command said the strikes, which reportedly hit roughly 100 targets linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, were carried out in response to Iranian attacks on commercial shipping in the strait and on American military bases in the region. A U.S. official described the operation using the phrase "mow the lawn," characterizing it as part of an effort to systematically degrade Iran's capacity to rebuild the radar and missile systems it relies on to threaten shipping traffic.

"Bought at least a month" of reduced threat levels for commercial vessels transiting the strait, the same U.S. official told Axios, describing the anticipated impact of the strikes.

Iran responded to the U.S. strikes with a barrage of roughly 25 ballistic missiles, about half of which reportedly reached Jordanian airspace before most were intercepted, alongside drone attacks targeting American and allied military bases in Bahrain, Kuwait and Erbil, Iraq.

Despite the ongoing violence, the United States has continued efforts to keep at least some shipping moving through the strait. American naval forces have continued escorting commercial vessels through the waterway, with more than 20 U.S. warships having redirected 82 commercial vessels through the strait since Washington's naval blockade of Iranian ports resumed on July 14, according to Central Command's own accounting cited by reporting on the crisis.

The economic impact of the prolonged disruption has been substantial. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, crude oil and petroleum liquids moving through the strait averaged between 20.4 million and 21.6 million barrels per day in the final quarter of 2025, before the conflict began. That volume collapsed to just 4.9 million barrels per day by the second quarter of 2026. Separate analysis from Al Jazeera, citing UNCTAD and Kpler data, found that Gulf crude exports have fallen by nearly half compared with pre-war levels, with direct crude shipments moving specifically through the strait dropping to an average of just 2.2 million barrels per day.

War-risk insurance claims tied to the crisis have topped $2 billion, according to maritime industry publication gCaptain, as attacks on shipping have spread beyond the strait itself to other parts of the wider Gulf region. Iraq has separately been actively searching for tankers still willing to attempt transits through the strait, according to Bloomberg, a sign of just how severely commercial shipping operators have pulled back from the corridor amid the ongoing danger.

Brent crude oil prices have remained elevated throughout the crisis, trading around $95.83 a barrel as of the most recent tracking, reflecting sustained market concern over the strait's disrupted capacity even as some workarounds, including alternative pipeline routes bypassing the waterway entirely, have begun to permanently reduce the region's reliance on the strait for oil exports.

President Trump has previously indicated that any lasting resolution to the conflict would need to include Iran's full and safe reopening of the strait to international shipping. Following an earlier two-week ceasefire agreement reached in April that ultimately collapsed, Trump said at the time that any truce remained "subject to ... Iran agreeing to the complete, immediate, and safe opening of the Strait of Hormuz."

With the conflict now well into its seventh month and showing no clear signs of a durable resolution, maritime analysts continue to describe the strait's current status as neither fully closed nor genuinely reopened, but rather severely constrained, with a growing share of regional oil exports being permanently rerouted around the waterway even as sporadic transits and U.S.-escorted convoys continue to move a reduced volume of shipping through one of the world's most strategically vital, and now most dangerous, maritime chokepoints.