24 July 2026.

Situation

The Strait of Hormuz is operating at a fraction of its pre-crisis capacity, with PortWatch's most recent published day (2026-07-19) recording just 15 transits against a pre-crisis baseline of 88 per day; that figure carries a multi-day lag by design, as PortWatch publishes weekly on Tuesdays. Separately, our AIS tracking recorded 539 port arrivals across Hormuz-area ports on both the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman sides in the most recent 24 hours, with 469 vessels anchored or stopped as of 23:52 UTC, reflecting severe congestion rather than normal throughput. Crisis Pressure remains in the extreme band, flat over the past 24 hours, with physical transit deviation the dominant contributor. The Escalation Forecast sits in the high band but has been easing, driven partly by Polymarket contract pricing; that divergence between a static extreme state reading and a softening forecast warrants caution before reading it as de-escalation. Brent dropped 2.12% over 24 hours to $98.38 as of 23:52 UTC, with traders weighing supply-side pressure against tentative diplomatic signals. Oman is mediating with Tehran on transit protocols, Al Jazeera reports, while Doha talks are focused on a broader US-Iran memorandum. On the military side, Iranian state media claims a US strike killed two crew aboard an LPG tanker near the strait, a claim not independently confirmed; separately, an LPG vessel carrying 28 Indian crew was reported attacked, per Azerbaijani news reporting. The US military, per the Boston Herald, says it fired on a merchant vessel attempting to breach a blockade of Iranian ports. Thirty-seven indexed events were recorded in the past 24 hours.

Recorded