The Daily View: A not yet durable peace

THE brief lull in hostilities around the Strait of Hormuz has done little to disguise the fragility of the current shipping environment.

Vessel transits may have surged 81% last week, but the numbers mask a deeper truth: nothing about this situation is stable, and every workaround remains temporary.

Shipowners, charterers and security advisers describe a transit regime held together by improvisation and pragmatic approaches to risk.

Routes are chosen hour by hour, contingent on shifting political approvals and real‑time security assessments. Several ships have only moved after governments exchanged written guarantees of safe passage this week — whatever they are worth in the current climate.

Others continue to follow instructions from the Iran‑backed Persian Gulf Strait Authority, judging Tehran’s approval to be the least risky option.

Traffic continues to be split between two uneasy corridors: an Iran‑approved northern route and a southern lane hugging Oman’s coast under US naval protection.

The southern route still dominates, with 134 transits last week, but its vulnerability was exposed when renewed strikes briefly suppressed traffic. Iran‑approved passages, by contrast, held steady.

Many operators are now waiting at either end of the strait to form small convoys — a sign of rising fear and rising insurance rates.

Diplomacy offers little reassurance. The US and Iran have agreed to halt attacks and send delegations to Doha, yet no high‑level meetings have been confirmed.

Iran and Oman both insist on controlling maritime traffic, but their visions diverge.

Tehran has floated a Middle East Gulf‑state “collective security mechanism,” while also signalling it may act alone if Oman declines joint oversight.

Oman, according to reports, has proposed a fee‑based system for shipping companies — an idea guaranteed to irk the US negotiators currently waiting in the hotel bar.

These negotiating tactics are nowhere near a credible plan to reopen Hormuz, and yet the uncertainty they are sustaining is reshaping logistics.

A workaround has emerged in which UAE‑chartered VLCCs shuttle crude within the MEG to offshore anchorages near Fujairah and Oman, where cargoes are transferred to other tankers for onward transport.

The split reflects differing risk appetites: some owners are willing to run Hormuz; others refuse, especially as falling VLCC freight rates offer little incentive to take on additional danger.

The weekend’s skirmishes underline the core reality: peace in the strait is not yet durable. Until a sustainable security agreement is reached, shipping flows will remain volatile, and every uptick in traffic should be seen not as recovery, but as reprieve.

Richard Meade
Editor-in-chief, Lloyd’s List

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