A US-Iran framework points to a phased reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. AXSMarine data shows how deep the hole is: crude through the strait down ~85%, and roughly 100 million barrels of Gulf crude trapped in floating storage.
| Crude transiting Hormuz | ~2.1 mbpd |
| Change since the closure (28 Feb to 17 Jun) | -85% (from ~14.75 mbpd) |
| Gulf crude in floating storage (trapped) | ~102.5M bbl on 66 tankers |
| - concentrated on VLCCs (~79%) | ~81M bbl on 40 VLCCs |
| - of which Iranian | ~54M bbl |
The framework agreed between Washington and Tehran on 15 June a phased reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, beginning with mine clearance is the most significant jolt to the tanker market since Iran closed the strait at the end of February. After almost four months of disruption, the question is no longer whether Gulf crude will flow again, but how deep a hole the market is climbing out of.
It is deep. AXSMarine voyage data shows crude transiting Hormuz at roughly 2.1 million b/d in mid-June down about 85% from the ~14.75 million b/d crossing the strait the day it closed. That is the depth of a market starved of Middle Eastern crude for almost four months.
The closure did not hit exporters equally. Saudi Arabia largely coped, rerouting to the Red Sea on the East-West pipeline recently restored to around 7 million b/d holding its total export loss to roughly a quarter. The UAE could not: its Habshan-Fujairah line tops out near 1.8 million b/d, so its total crude exports fell about two-thirds. Iran proved the most resilient, its flow holding near 1.4 million b/d throughout entirely on the dark fleet bound for China lifting its share of the crude still crossing Hormuz above half.
The barrels that couldn't leave
Crude that loaded but cannot transit is stacking up on the water. As of early June, roughly 102 million barrels of Gulf crude, some $8 billion, sit in floating storage in and around the strait: ~82 million trapped inside the Gulf, another ~20 million waiting in the Gulf of Oman. It is held on about 66 tankers, but the weight is in the big ships: nearly four-fifths about 81 million barrels sits on just 40 VLCCs, which is why this is, above all, a VLCC story.
The ownership is telling. Iran alone holds more than half because, unlike its neighbors, it has no pipeline to bypass Hormuz, so its crude piles up on dark-fleet tankers rather than flowing out. Saudi Arabia and the UAE reroute most of their barrels and strand less; Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar, with no workarounds, hold the rest.
The geography splits cleanly: effectively all of the ~20 million barrels stranded east of Hormuz out in the Gulf of Oman is Iranian, pre-positioned past the chokepoint for the run to China, while every other producer's trapped crude sits west, inside the Gulf, still waiting to get out. Of that, roughly 65 million barrels on about 32 VLCCs sit inside the Gulf, poised to sail the moment the strait opens.
| Origin | East of Hormuz | West of Hormuz | Total |
| Iran | 20.49 | 33.22 | 53.71 |
| Saudi Arabia | - | 18.56 | 18.56 |
| Iraq | - | 11.44 | 11.44 |
| United Arab Emirates | - | 10.74 | 10.74 |
| Kuwait | - | 6.13 | 6.13 |
| Qatar | - | 1.97 | 1.97 |
| Total Gulf | 20.49 | 82.05 | 102.54 |
How the crude is actually getting out
Two channels are doing the work while the strait stays dangerous. Compliant VLCCs are being let through directly under Iranian escort and prior authorization a handful of named transits for cooperating buyers in China and Korea. Everything else leans on a ship-to-ship relay the US is now running off Fujairah and Sohar, just outside the chokepoint: small shuttles take the risky inner leg and transfer onto tankers waiting in safe water a technique borrowed from the dark fleet, and inherently risky and inefficient.
That floating storage is also the loaded spring. The reopening will not be a switch normalization will take months. But once the strait is judged secure, this trapped crude discharges alongside fresh Gulf liftings, and the waiting tankers about a week of exports sail at once.
For the tanker market, VLCCs are the canary: hit hardest by the closure, they will move first on the reopening, and their return will set the tone for rates across the complex. The market is split on what that means after record VLCC earnings through the disruption, much of the industry warns the reopening could sink freight rates as idle tonnage floods back. We read the risk as two-sided rather than one-way: that wall of returning tonnage meets a wall of pent-up demand into inventories drawn to multi-year lows, so the real hazard is a disorderly snapback in either direction. The strait is reopening; normal is still months away.
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