31 July 2026.

Situation

The Strait of Hormuz remains the central pressure point of a conflict now entering its sixth month. A closure declaration attributed to the IRGC is circulating in the feed, but the US position, reflected in new sanctions accusing Iran of extortion and targeting tanker owners and insurers, implies vessels are still moving or attempting to transit; this site's carrier-posture verdict is a cautious closed, while the physical transit picture stays contested. AP News reports the US and Iran exchanged missile barrages, with no quick resolution in sight; that account has not been confirmed by a second independent source. PortWatch's most recently published day, 2026-07-23, recorded 10 transits against a pre-crisis baseline of 88 per day. Separately, this site's port-arrival tracking counted 400 arrivals across the Hormuz-area ports on both the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman sides in the most recent 24 hours; that figure uses a different methodology and must not be read alongside the PortWatch number as a single dataset. At 02:52 UTC, Brent stood at $87.98, down 1.98% over the prior 24 hours; 1,403 vessels were anchored or stopped at that snapshot. The Crisis Pressure index holds at extreme, flat over 24 hours, with physical transit deviation the top contributor. The Escalation Forecast sits at elevated and is rising, driven by prediction-market signals, a divergence from the flat state reading that warrants attention. A drone strike on Egypt's port of Damietta, per gCaptain citing Reuters, points to a potential new front beyond the strait. QatarEnergy completed its first LNG shipment through the strait in three weeks, per Upstream Online. Saudi Arabia has announced a multinational maritime defense coalition, per Al Jazeera.

Recorded