More ships, more sanctions: What ‘stable’ Hormuz traffic means
More empty tankers, more sanctioned ships: the new reality in Hormuz
Hormuz vessel traffic is holding "steady", a count that may also mask an undersirable situation: a weaker flow of oil through the chokepoint.
MarineTraffic’s latest weekly snapshot (posted August 24, 2026) shows vessel crossings through two critical Middle East chokepoints — the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb — remaining roughly “stable”, or slightly higher week-over-week.
Headline numbers, however, mask a clear shift in what is moving and how, based on known marine traffic data through the strait.
The data
Strait of Hormuz (the world’s most important oil chokepoint, normally handling ~20% of global petroleum liquids):
121 crossings (up 2.5% from 118 the prior week).
Laden (cargo-carrying) crossings plunged 27% to just 35.
Ballast (empty) movements rose to 61.
Sanctioned crossings jumped from 9 to 16.
Iran’s unilateral routing scheme accounted for 46.3% of all crossings.
Bab al-Mandab (southern entrance to the Red Sea / Suez route):
269 crossings (up 3.1%), roughly 2.2× Hormuz volumes.
Laden transits rose to 131.
Dark (AIS-off) transits fell from 23 to 15.
Raw count of ship transits vs risks
MarineTraffic’s point is straightforward: raw transit counts can look reassuring while the commercial and risk profile deteriorates.
Saudi Arabia’s national shipping company, Bahri, highlighted this risk when it reported that its vessel AMZAN was involved in a security-related incident in the Red Sea on Monday (Aug. 24, 2026), while confirming all crew members were safe, with no injuries.
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Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility, saying they struck the Saudi oil tanker with a ballistic missile as part of what they described as a maritime blockade against Saudi Arabia.
The Houthis said the strike was “accurate and direct,” causing a fire aboard the vessel and prompting other ships in the area to flee. They said the attack was part of their decision to ban maritime navigation by what they called the “Saudi enemy.”
Bahri did not immediately confirm the Houthis’ account of how the incident occurred.
Hormuz crossing dynamics
The Strait of Hormuz is a classic one-way energy export chokepoint for the Gulf producers (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain Iran, etc.):
Inbound traffic is dominated by tankers (and some dry-bulk or other ships) arriving in ballast to load crude, products, LNG, or LPG at Gulf terminals. These empty ships cross into the Gulf to pick up cargo.
Outbound traffic is dominated by the same ships leaving fully (or partially) laden, carrying the cargoes that supply roughly one-fifth of the world’s petroleum liquids and a large share of seaborne LNG under normal conditions.
This creates the textbook “empty in, full out” cycle.
As the MarineTraffic data shows, a corridor full of empty ships, sanctioned vessels, and traffic forced onto Iran’s preferred northern route is not the same as “normalised” trade.
There is always some two-way mixed traffic (containers, general cargo, non-energy bulk, naval vessels, etc.), but energy tankers drive the volumes and the risk picture.
Pre-crisis averages were typically around 100–140+ total vessel crossings per day across all types, with the commercial energy flow heavily skewed toward net exports.
Iran’s unilateral scheme
This sits inside a prolonged US-Iran conflict that began in late February 2026.
Iran has asserted control over Hormuz routing via its “unilateral scheme” or the corridor closer to its coast.
Traditional UN-approved “Traffic Separation Scheme” and Omani southern routes have seen little or no confirmed use, based on recent MarineTraffic data.
Daily commodity-vessel counts from other trackers have frequently been far lower (often single digits on individual days), reflecting both reduced commercial willingness and heavy use of dark or opaque movements, Reuters reported.
At Bab el-Mandeb, Houthi-related risks and earlier blockade threats have kept the security environment elevated even as overall crossings hold up better than Hormuz.
Dark and sanctioned/shadow-fleet activity remains a recurring feature.
The usual direction of ballast ships through Hormuz: “Ballast” (empty or nearly empty) vessels normally travel inbound — entering the Arabian Gulf (Middle East Gulf) from the Gulf of Oman / Arabian Sea. Laden vessels normally travel outbound — exiting the Gulf toward global markets.
How the empty-in-full-out dynamics adds context to the MarineTraffic data
In the latest weekly figures (121 Hormuz crossings):
Laden crossings fell sharply (−27% to 35).
Ballast movements rose (to 61).
“Sanctioned” vessels also increased.
A higher share of “ballast” relative to “laden” crossings means the corridor is seeing more empty ships moving (mostly inbound, by the usual pattern) than cargo-carrying ships leaving.
That is consistent with reduced commercial loading and export activity inside the Gulf: fewer ships are completing the full cycle of entering empty, loading, and exiting full.
Instead, available empty tonnage is still crossing or circulating while actual cargo outflow remains suppressed.
In a disrupted environment (Iran’s unilateral routing scheme handling nearly half the traffic, elevated security risk, sanctioned/shadow activity rising), this imbalance is a useful signal.
In short: ballast ships usually go in to load; laden ships usually go out with the cargo. When ballast rises and laden falls, it points to emptier pipelines and more positioning traffic rather than normalised export flows.
As maritime risk and actual energy/trade flows are far from “normalising”, the key takeaway from the MarineTraffic that vessel-level detail (laden vs ballast, sanctioned status, routing choice, AIS behaviour) matters more than aggregate crossing totals.
While the Hormuz Strait vessel “traffic holds”, this can coexist with emptier commercial pipelines, greater reliance on high-risk or sanctioned tonnage, and de-facto Iranian gatekeeping of the strait, a point that continues to be disputed by the US.
As raw ships transit counts can look relatively "stable", it may also mean commercial “throughput” of energy and trade is weaker than the numbers suggest.
