Shipping statistics indicate a significant reduction in vessel traffic in the Strait of Hormuz over the past two days, with many ships avoiding the southern route of the waterway near the Omani coast amid recent regional tensions.
The research firm HFA Research reported that on Sunday, only four tankers and one container ship, all accompanied by US Navy vessels, passed through the southern route adjacent to Oman’s coast. Additionally, according to data from the maritime tracking firm Kpler, no ships chose this route to exit the Persian Gulf.
Kpler data also shows that the number of vessels carrying raw materials passing through the Strait of Hormuz dropped from 29 on Saturday to only 12 on Sunday.
According to the report, by 3:00 PM GMT on Monday, only one ship had used the Oman route to exit the Persian Gulf, and another had entered the Gulf via the same path.
On the other hand, X Marine reported that the number of transits through the Strait of Hormuz fell from 36 on Saturday to 19 on Sunday—a sharp decline compared to the days following the signing of the Tehran-Washington memorandum on June 17, when around 70 ships passed through the waterway in a single day.
**Warnings Against Using Unauthorized Routes**
This decline follows Iran’s renewed warnings to ships against using unauthorized routes to transit the Strait. On Saturday, a tanker suffered material damage from a projectile, though no casualties were reported.
Despite ships continuing to use the southern route in Omani waters after the incident, tracking data shows a gradual decrease in traffic volume on that route.
In contrast, over the weekend, the number of ships entering the Persian Gulf exceeded those leaving—a pattern assessed within the context of an evacuation operation involving approximately 11,000 sailors from the region.
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