Iran continues to export millions of barrels of oil, with about 90 ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz despite the war

HONG KONG (AP) — About 90 ships including oil tankers have transited the Strait of Hormuz since the start of the war with Iran and are still exporting millions of barrels of oil at a time when the waterway has been effectively closed, according to maritime and trade data platforms.

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Marine data company Lloyd’s List Intelligence said many of the ships that passed through the strait were so-called “dark” transits to evade Western government sanctions and oversight and potentially had ties to Iran. Recently, ships with ties to India and Pakistan have also successfully transited the strait as the governments intensify negotiations.

With crude oil prices rising to more than $100 a barrel, US President Donald Trump has pressured allies and trading partners to send warships and reopen the strait, hoping to lower oil prices.

Most shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway for transporting global oil and gas that supplies nearly a fifth of the world’s crude oil, has been halted since early March, after the war began. About 20 ships were attacked in the area.

However, Iran has still managed to export more than 16 million barrels of oil since the beginning of March, according to estimates from trade data and analytics platform Kpler. Because of Western sanctions and the risks associated with them, China has become the largest buyer of Iranian oil.

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Ana Subasic, a trade risk analyst at Kpler, said there was “continued resilience” in Iranian oil export volumes.

Con Cao, client director at consultancy Rydal, said Iran was able to benefit from oil sales and also “preserve its export artery” by controlling the checkpoint.

Estimates of Iranian oil export data are largely consistent with maritime traffic data.

At least 89 ships crossed the Strait of Hormuz between March 1 and 15 — including 16 oil tankers, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence, down from about 100 to 135 ships a day before the war. It added that more than a fifth of the 89 ships are believed to belong to Iran, while ships belonging to China and Greece are among the rest.

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Other ships also crossed.

Lloyd’s List Intelligence said the Pakistani-flagged crude oil tanker Karachi, controlled by the Pakistan National Shipping Corporation, passed through the strait on Sunday.

Sharik Amin, a spokesman for Pakistan Port Trust, declined to confirm or deny the route the MT Karachi used, but said the ship would soon arrive safely in Pakistan.

Two Indian-flagged LPG carriers, Shivalik and Nanda Devi, owned by the state-owned Shipping Corporation of India, also traveled through the strait around March 13 or 14, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence. LPG is used as the primary fuel for cooking by millions of Indian households.

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Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar told the Financial Times that the two ships were able to pass after talks with Iran. The official Iraqi News Agency reported that Iraq is also in talks with Iran to allow Iraqi oil tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

Richard Mead, editor-in-chief of Lloyd’s List, said the ships might pass “with at least some level of diplomatic intervention”. Therefore, Iran may have “effectively established safe passage” with some ships passing close to the Iranian coast.

It turns out that some ships near or in the strait declared themselves linked to China or with an all-Chinese crew to reduce the risk of being attacked, based on previous analysis on the ship-tracking platform MarineTraffic. Analysts believe they were exploiting China’s close ties with Iran.

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Oil prices have jumped by more than 40% to exceed $100 per barrel since the start of the war with Iran, and Iran has threatened that it will not allow the passage of “even one liter of oil” destined for the United States, Israel and their allies.

In an attempt to stabilize oil prices, the United States said it was allowing Iranian oil tankers to cross the strait. “Iranian ships have already started going out, and we have allowed that to happen to supply the rest of the world,” Treasury Secretary Scott Besent said in an interview with CNBC on Monday.

The United States has bombed military sites on Kharg Island off the Iranian coast, which are key to Iran’s oil network and exports, but President Donald Trump said he had left the oil infrastructure alone for now.

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Cao said recent passages through the Strait of Hormuz show that the strait was not simply “closed.” “It is best to understand that it is selectively closed to some traffic, while still operating for Iranian exports and a narrow range of permitted non-Iranian movements,” he added.

However, if Iran’s plan is to “do damage through higher energy prices, the number of tankers it allows through the Strait of Hormuz may be severely limited,” Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey, strategists at Dutch bank ING, wrote in a research note.

Saleq reported from New Delhi. AP writer Munir Ahmed contributed from Islamabad, Pakistan.