SINGAPORE: Six commodity vessels passed through the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, down from nine a day earlier and below the 10-day average of about 12, preliminary shipping data showed on Wednesday.
The figures exclude any vessels that might have crossed the strait with their Automatic Identification System transponders turned off to avoid detection.Of the six vessels, five were entering and one was exiting, initial data from shiptracker Kpler showed at 0200 GMT. They included one Panamax and one intermediate tanker.
The chokepoint at the southern tip of the Gulf prior to the start of the Iran war on February 28 typically handled about 125 large, commercial vessels per day, including oil tankers and natural gas carriers. The traffic accounted for some 20 per cent of the world’s daily crude oil and liquefied natural gas supply.A US blockade of Iran-related shipping has halted Iranian crude oil exports since it was reimposed in mid-July.
