US President Donald Trump has insisted that his military remains in control of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and suggested this past week that the US might even seek to take charge of the territory. On Tuesday, he also claimed that the strait was open for vessels to pass through, despite Iranian insistence that the waterway was closed for all ships that don’t seek Tehran’s approval before seeking transit, and even though the US itself has a naval blockade in place targeting all Iran-linked ships. At the same time, Trump has threatened to bomb Oman, a US ally that sits across the Strait of Hormuz from Iran – the waterway lies in the maritime territories of Iran and Oman – in an apparent bid to dissuade Muscat from striking any deal with Tehran to jointly manage the strait.
So who really is in control of the Hormuz strait at the moment? Amid the claims and counterclaims from both sides, actual data on the traffic passing through the waterway offers vital clues. Before the war started, the Strait of Hormuz was largely considered a single waterway, without distinctions between “Iranian” or “Omani” routes, and ships entered and exited along well‑established traffic separation schemes, mostly along the central part of the strait.
Decisions on how ships navigated the strait were determined by port calls, charter terms and safety rather than the fear of military consequences. Since the war has resulted in tensions between the US and Iran over the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway has been fractured into two main routes. Tehran insists on the northern, Iranian route, hugging Iran’s coast near Larak Island and Qeshm Island, and feeding directly into Iranian ports and offshore terminals.
The other route is the southern, Omani route, closer to Oman and further from Iran’s shoreline. This is the route that Washington insists on. This is the route used by commercial carriers under US Naval protection.
Data from maritime intelligence firm Kpler shows that 112 vessels carrying crude, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) passed through the Strait of Hormuz – either entering the Gulf or leaving it – between August 1 and August 19. Of those tankers and carriers, 21 openly used the Iranian route and only two formally used the Omani route. The remaining 89 vessels, which make up more than 80 percent of the total oil and gas traffic through the strait in this period, went along dark or otherwise unclassified routes.
This happens when a vessel’s movements cannot be fully tracked or clearly linked to a declared route because the vessel either turns off its Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponder or the AIS data does not neatly fit into Kpler’s defined Iranian or Omani corridors. Hence, it is not clear which route these vessels took. Kpler’s data shows that 236 ships in all transited through Hormuz between August 1 and August 19.
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