Iran and U.S. Declare Strait of Hormuz Open,
But Navigation Risks Persist
Statements from President
Trump and Iran aimed to raise confidence in the safety of the waterway, but shipping
experts said risks remained.
·
Cease-Fire Context:
o Strait reopening tied to Lebanon cease-fire
beginning at midnight.
o Both Iran’s FM Seyed Abbas Araghchi
and President Trump announced the strait is “completely open.”
·
Market Reaction:
o Oil prices fell sharply:
§ Brent crude down 9% to $90.38/barrel.
§ WTI down 11% to below $84/barrel.
o S&P 500 rose 1.2%, reflecting optimism.
·
Blockade Dispute:
o U.S. military blockade of Iranian ships
in the Gulf of Oman remains in place.
o Iran opposes blockade, warns of possible
countermeasures.
·
Shipping Concerns:
o Executives hesitant due to mine clearance
doubts and Iran’s demand for routes near its coastline.
o Analysts note this does not equal freedom
of navigation under IMO’s traffic separation scheme.
o Around 900 ships stranded in the
Persian Gulf; some operators await insurance clarity before moving.
·
Operational Realities:
o U.S. Central Command reported 19 ships
forced back to Iranian ports, claiming “ZERO vessels evaded” blockade.
o IMO reviewing compliance with secure
passage standards.
o Shipping experts expect recovery to take
weeks, not days.
·
Global Significance:
o Strait handles 20% of world’s oil
and major LNG flows.
o Reopening seen as crucial step toward
a broader peace agreement.
[ABS News Service/18.04.2026]
Commercial ships can sail through the Strait of Hormuz after the
agreement of a cease-fire in Lebanon, according to statements from Iran and the
United States on Friday
The flow of oil and gas through the waterway had slowed to trickle
during the war, creating a shortage of gasoline and diesel that had rattled economies
around the world. The prospect of the strait reopening prompted a sharp decline
in oil prices and a rally in stock markets on Friday.
But Iran and the United States were still at odds over the U.S. military’s
blockade of Iranian ships, in place since Monday, and enforced east of the strait
in the Gulf of Oman. President Trump said on Friday that the blockade would remain.
Iran said that it opposed the blockade, and that it may take countermeasures against
it, without saying what those might be.
And there are obstacles to a quick return of ships to the waterway.
Shipping executives want to be certain that their vessels aren’t in danger, and
they may be reluctant to comply with Iran’s requirement that ships use a route that
runs close to its coastline, rather than the two main lanes used before the war.
Iranian officials said on Friday that vessels would still need permission to travel
through the strait.
Ships had not returned in large numbers to the strait as of Friday,
according to shipping analysts.
Still, assertions from Iran and the United States that the strait
is open suggest that both sides see the waterway as a crucial part of a wider, permanent
peace agreement.
Iran’s foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, said in a post on
X that the strait would be “completely open” after the cease-fire in Lebanon, which
began at midnight.
Shortly after that announcement, Mr. Trump responded in a social media post: “IRAN HAS JUST ANNOUNCED THAT THE STRAIT OF IRAN IS FULLY OPEN
AND READY FOR FULL PASSAGE. THANK YOU!”
The statements raised hopes among tanker owners eager to resume moving
oil and gas out of the Persian Gulf.
“Assuming this holds, then I think it’s great news,” said Jerry Kalogiratos,
chief executive of Capital Clean Energy Carriers, a shipping company that operates
oil and gas tankers.
Before the war, a fifth of the world’s oil and a significant share
of its liquefied natural gas traveled through the Strait
of Hormuz.
Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, fell more than 9 percent
on Friday, to $90.38 a barrel, its lowest level in more than a month, though it
remains more than 20 percent higher than before the war started. West Texas Intermediate,
the U.S. benchmark, fell over 11 percent Friday, to below $84 a barrel.
Stocks, which have rapidly recovered from a war-induced sell-off
in March, rose after the announcement. The S&P 500 rose 1.2 percent on Friday.
Ship traffic through the strait plummeted after Iran attacked vessels
in the region. By effectively closing the waterway, and cutting off energy supplies,
Iran had leverage that it could use against the United States and Israel.
The recent cease-fires have to last.Mr.
Araghchi said on X that the strait would be open for the “remaining period of cease-fire.”
He did not specify whether that was the 10-day cease-fire that began in Lebanon
or the one between the United States and Iran, which is scheduled to end on Tuesday.
Experts said Iran’s demand that ships used a route through the strait
that runs close to its coastline would mean that the waterway was not truly open.
“That does not equate to freedom of navigation,” said Martin Navias,
an author of “Tanker Wars: The Assault on Merchant Shipping During the Iran-Iraq
Crisis.”
Before the war, around 130 ships a day passed through the strait,
using two main lanes that are different from the route that Iran has specified.
To maximize the flow of tankers through the waterway, shipping analysts said vessels
would have to return to the two main lanes. But for shipowners to use the lanes,
they would have to be certain that they are free of mines.
According to U.S.
officials, Iran has not been able to locate all of the
mines it has laid in the strait and lacks the ability to remove them.
On Friday, Mr. Trump said on social media that, with the help of the United States, Iran “has
removed, or is removing, all sea mines!”
In normal times, the two lanes operate as a “traffic separation scheme”
that the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency, adopted in
1968 to avoid collisions.
On Friday, the organization’s secretary-general, Arsenio Dominguez,
said it was looking at whether the announcement on the opening of the strait complied
“with freedom of navigation for all merchant vessels and secure passage using the
I.M.O. established traffic separation scheme.”
The U.S. blockade seeks to stop Iranian and Iran-linked ships leaving
the region. Iran had been exporting crude during the war at volumes that were similar
to those before the conflict.
U.S. Central Command posted a video on Friday of U.S. officials directing
a merchant vessel to return to an Iranian port. It was one of 19 ships that have
complied with direction from U.S. forces to turn around and return to Iran, Central
Command said on social media. “ZERO vessels have evaded U.S. forces during the blockade,” it
said.
Major shipping companies, which have been hesitant to send ships
through the strait, even ones that have been stranded there for weeks, said they
were assessing whether the waterway had become safer.
“There are still some open questions on our end, but they might be
resolved within the next 24 hours,” said Nils Haupt, a spokesman for German company
Hapag-Lloyd, the fifth-largest container shipping company in the world. He added
that Hapag-Lloyd wanted its six stranded ships to cross the strait as soon as possible,
but that it still needed answers on insurance coverage as well as clear orders from
the Iranian government on the sea corridor that should be used and the sequence
of ships leaving.
“On paper, this looks great,” said Alexis Ellender, an analyst at
Kpler, a marine data tracking firm. But he added that
he expected it would to take some time — weeks, not days — before there was a significant
uptick in the volume of ships going through.
Some smaller companies may be willing to restart traffic if they
secure affordable insurance cover. Around 900 ships have been stranded in the Persian
Gulf over the course of the war, according to a New York Times analysis of Kpler data.
One Istanbul-based ship operator with a stranded ship, who spoke
on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news
media, said that he would consider moving it out of the strait as soon as Friday
if he could secure insurance coverage, but he expected it to take several days.