31 July 2026.

Situation

The Strait of Hormuz remains under severe operational strain. Iranian state media claims the IRGC struck and halted two oil tankers it described as violating transit regulations; that claim originates with Mehr News and has not been confirmed by independent maritime sources. Separately, IRNA reports that Foreign Minister Araghchi raised the issue of maritime blockades and attacks on Iranian shipping in a call with his Indian counterpart; that account also carries no independent corroboration. The Crisis Pressure composite sits in the extreme band, flat over the past 24 hours, with physical transit deviation as its leading contributor. The Escalation Forecast composite registers in the elevated band and has been easing, driven in part by Polymarket escalation contracts, a divergence from the state composite that warrants attention. PortWatch recorded 10 transits on 2026-07-23, its most recently published day, against a pre-crisis baseline of 88 per day; that figure is eight days old by design, as PortWatch publishes weekly on Tuesdays. Port arrivals across Hormuz-area ports on both the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman sides totaled 396 vessels in the most recent 24-hour window, a separate and non-comparable metric to the PortWatch transit count. Brent stood at $90.24, a 2.38% gain over the prior 24 hours as of 23:52 UTC; futures markets are closed and that figure is a carried-forward pre-close delta, not a live signal. A shadow-fleet tanker oil spill spreading off Oman, reported by gCaptain, adds an environmental dimension to an already congested operational picture.

Recorded