Ten. That's the five-day average of vessels crossing the Strait of Hormuz as of Tuesday, according to trade intelligence firm Kpler — the lowest reading since May, a fraction of the roughly 130 ships a day that transited before the war began in February. President Donald Trump insists the waterway is open anyway.
"The Hormuz Strait is open and operating," Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday. "The U.S. naval blockade remained in force and that all water mines had been removed or detonated."
He also said there were no talks scheduled with Tehran — a walk-back from his own comments a day earlier about back-channel contact with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The tankers tell a different story. Hours after Trump's post, a cargo ship came under attack while exiting the strait, struck by a projectile that tore into its engine room and killed one crew member, according to the UK Maritime Trade Operations Centre.
The vessel was sailing less than a nautical mile off the Omani coast, on the so-called southern route the U.S. Navy is meant to protect. At least 17 mariners have died in 65 attacks on commercial shipping since the war began on February 28, according to the International Maritime Organization.
Tehran's Price for Reopening
Iran isn't pretending the strait is open either. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said Tuesday that Hormuz stays closed until Washington lifts its naval blockade of Iranian ports, removes sanctions on Iranian oil exports, unfreezes Iranian assets abroad, and halts military operations "on all fronts" — the terms Tehran says the U.S. agreed to under the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding signed June 17, before the pact collapsed in July.
Separately, a senior Iranian official told Reuters that the country is shifting to a "fully offensive" military posture, warning of a "timely and precise" strike aimed at breaking the blockade if diplomacy fails within weeks. The temporary ceasefire that had briefly calmed the region expired Monday without an extension.
The Market Isn't Buying "Open" Either
Oil settled higher Tuesday for a third straight session, pricing in the diplomatic breakdown rather than any real change in supply or demand. Brent crude rose 0.3%, or 27 cents, to $91.14 a barrel — its best close since July 30. West Texas Intermediate added 0.3%, or 42 cents, to $85.04, a level not seen since July 31; WTI touched $85.37 intraday.
The rally carried into Wednesday's Early London session, with Brent holding above $91 and WTI up 0.52% to $85.38. Every fresh data point out of the Gulf — thin vessel counts, a dead sailor, a stalled ceasefire — has fed the same trade: sell certainty, buy the risk premium.
Bank of America Fund managers survey revealed that Funder Managers seem optimistic in large part because they’re confident that the oil price won’t veer out of control. On average, they think crude will be $76 per barrel at year’s end:
Oil at such a price would tax the economy, but needn’t get in the way of a “no landing” scenario. One point of concern is that the asset allocators were markedly more optimistic than those who invest directly in the oil markets. January 2027 Brent futures have risen back above $85, a high for the war period barring a few weeks in May:
Missiles Land Near the UAE
Tuesday also brought two ballistic missiles fired at the United Arab Emirates from Iran, according to the UAE's Ministry of Defence. Both fell into the sea — one inside the country's territorial waters, the other outside — and Emirati air defenses handled the threat without incident. Bloomberg reported it was Iran's first known strike on the UAE since May.
Qatar's Three Fronts
Qatar's Foreign Ministry used its weekly briefing Tuesday to lay out why a broader U.S.-Iran settlement remains stuck. Spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said talks are on hold until Iran and Oman finalize a bilateral arrangement governing navigation through Hormuz — a deal a regional source told CNN is close to being reached.
Al-Ansari also pushed back hard on Iranian claims that Doha is secretly holding three Iranian pilots — Javad Salehi, Abdolmajid Dashtian and Omran Behraveshian — whose jets were shot down after violating Qatari airspace and targeting Doha in March. Tehran's General Mohammad Bagherzadeh had written to the International Committee of the Red Cross alleging the three have been held incommunicado for six months.
Al-Ansari called that "completely baseless," noting that Qatar already recovered and returned the remains of a fourth pilot, Majid Kazemi, killed in the same operation, and that an invitation for an Iranian technical team to review the search-and-rescue file has gone unanswered since it was first extended. He dismissed Tehran's push for ICRC involvement as a "media ploy," saying direct channels between Doha and Tehran remain open regardless.
Gulf Producers Hedge Their Bets
Away from the diplomacy, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are quietly rewriting where they keep their oil. The New York Times reported this week that both countries are in talks to sharply expand crude stockpiles held in Japan — beyond the roughly eight million barrels each currently leases in storage there — with similar discussions underway in South Korea.
The logic is simple. Oil sitting in a tank in Okinawa or Yeosu is oil that doesn't have to cross a strait that keeps getting shot at. Six months into a war that has repeatedly proven Hormuz can't be counted on, Gulf exporters are betting that inventory closer to their Asian customers is now worth more than inventory closer to home.
Russia's Exports Keep Sliding, Too
The Gulf isn't the only chokepoint under pressure. Ukrainian drone strikes have driven Russia's seaborne crude exports to their lowest level since late April, according to Bloomberg tanker-tracking data. No cargoes loaded at all last week at Novorossiysk, Russia's main Black Sea export terminal, extending a decline now in its fifth straight week — the steepest stretch since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Between Hormuz and the Black Sea, two of the world's most important crude corridors are being throttled at once, for entirely different reasons, by entirely different wars. The oil market has, for now, decided that's worth roughly three dollars a barrel. Whether that's enough is a different question — one that neither Washington nor Tehran seems in any hurry to answer.