The US says it’s open. Iran says it is closed. The Strait of Hormuz remains dangerous
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Is the Strait of Hormuz open or closed?
Comments from the US and Iranian leaders have given conflicting stories about the vital waterway, with the US saying it is still open to shipping and Iran saying it is closed again. About one-fifth of the world’s oil flows through this channel.
Ian Ralby, non-resident officer at the Maritime Security Agency and CEO of consultancy firm IR Consilium, says the road is not open in any “meaningful” way.
“‘Open’ in the US seems to mean something different than the transportation industry, which I think, mostly feels like it’s closed,” he said.
Ship tracking sites show that traffic continued to come in on Sunday, but nowhere near pre-war levels.
What was said
The US and Iran agreed last week to a 60-day ceasefire, which includes free passage for commercial shipping.
But Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Saturday announced that the Strait of Hormuz was closed, citing what it called Israel’s “crimes” in Lebanon and violations of US commitments to establish a ceasefire.
US President Donald Trump wrote on a social media site on Saturday that no costs will be charged if someone goes through that massacre during or after the 60-day suspension, unless the US imposes a law that peace talks fail.
The US Central Command said that 55 merchant ships passed the port on Saturday, transporting a large amount of goods and more than 17 million barrels of oil to the world market.
What happened
Before the US and Israel started their war on Iran on Feb. 28, Ralby says an average of 130 to 160 ships will pass through the road each day.
Since Iran first announced that the waterway was closed for several days during the war, that has dropped to six ships a day, with Iran allowing some to pay tolls and pass through.
After the two countries signed a ceasefire agreement, that number rose to 25 on Thursday.
But after Iran’s announcement on Saturday, the IRGC sent out a maritime radio broadcast warning that there would be no unauthorized access. In WhatsApp messages, senders shared reports of a warning shot being fired in the crisis.
Ralby says the US has been trying to “herd a few ships here and there” in the channel south of the Strait, in Omani waters. He says a maritime advisory has indicated that there is a sea mine in the area, adding to the already dangerous situation on this trip.
“As long as Iran is adamant that it will try to stop the ships, it is a very dangerous and dangerous situation,” Ralby said. “Shipowners are also at risk if the risk is bankruptcy.”
Iran says it has closed the Strait of Hormuz, a key route for oil and gas exports to the world, citing alleged violations by the US and Israel. The move comes ahead of talks in Switzerland aimed at developing an interim agreement between Washington and Tehran.
He says that ships that continue to pass through the Iranian side may have been given permission by Iran.
The Persian Gulf Strait Authority has issued a memo outlining the process for vessels to apply for a port passage permit.
“No vessel is allowed to pass through the Strait of Hormuz without a valid passage permit issued by the PGSA,” the memo said.
Does rhetoric consist of anything?
Ralby says there is no honest side.
He says that even if CENTCOM’s claim of 55 ships passing through is true, that is still a long way from a return to normalcy that will reset global markets.
“This is completely closed [debate] it is nonsense because we are in a place that has never been seen before,” he said.
The US and Iran were participating in peace talks in Switzerland on Sunday, which did not prevent Trump from changing the rhetoric, warning Iran to stop its “proxies” from “creating problems” in Lebanon. “If they don’t, we will hit Iran hard again, like we did last week, very hard!!!” posted on social media.
Alan Eyre, a former U.S. diplomat who helped negotiate the 2015 Iran nuclear deal under former U.S. president Barack Obama, told the CBC News Network that political posturing will not move the ships.
“Every day the strait remains closed, economic consequences and pain. So the urgent, urgent problem is to open that,” said Eyre.
“And that won’t be when Iran says it’s open or the US says it’s open. That’s when the shipping industry feels comfortable enough to send ships back through the strait.”
