1 August 2026.

Situation

The Strait of Hormuz continues to operate under severe constraint. PortWatch's most recent published day, 2026-07-23, recorded 10 transits against a pre-crisis baseline of 88 per day; the two figures use different methodologies and should not be combined. Separately, port arrivals across the Hormuz-area ports on both the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman sides reached 658 vessels in the most recent 24 hours, reflecting berth-level activity rather than through-strait transit volume. At 23:52 UTC, 365 vessels were holding position away from berth, a figure that excludes ships within 25 km of a working port. Brent stood at $87.93, a 24-hour delta of plus 2.38%, carried forward from the last close; futures markets are shut and no live trading signal should be inferred from that figure. The site's Crisis Pressure composite remains in the extreme band, flat over 24 hours, with physical transit deviation as the top contributor; the Escalation Forecast composite sits in the elevated band, also flat, with Polymarket escalation contracts as the leading driver. The two indices diverge by band, which is editorially significant: current physical conditions are rated more severely than the forward risk signal. The dominant news item is a Houthi denial, relayed by gCaptain citing Reuters, that the group plans to levy fees on Bab el-Mandeb transits; the claim is not independently confirmed. Multiple unverified, single-source reports describe a Qatari LNG carrier struck in the strait, but no independent corroboration has been published.

Recorded