1 September 2026.

Situation

The Strait of Hormuz remains under acute operational pressure. PortWatch's most recent published day, 2026-08-23, recorded 3 transits through the strait; the pre-crisis baseline stands at 85 per day. A multi-day publication lag is expected given PortWatch's weekly Tuesday release cycle. Separately, site AIS tracking showed 510 vessels holding position away from berth as of 02:53 UTC, up from earlier in the crisis period. Brent was trading at $91.18, a move of +1.01% over 24 hours, at the time of writing. The Hormuz Index state composite sits in the extreme band and is rising, with the published number set by a war-risk insurance single-component override; other inputs did not move it. The forecast composite is in the elevated band and easing, with the Brent-WTI forward spread as the top contributor. The two composites are diverging: the current-state reading is worsening while the forward-looking reading is softening. On the incident side, gCaptain reports a tanker involved in an incident with military forces in the Indian Ocean off Oman, per a UKMO advisory. Iranian state media claims the IRGC shot down a US MQ-9 drone over the eastern strait; that claim is unconfirmed by independent sources. Iranian state media also claims a supertanker caught fire after hitting two naval mines, a claim not independently corroborated. US CENTCOM has said no ships have hit mines, per unverified single-source reports from Forex Factory and MarketScreener. The 40 indexed events over the past 24 hours reflect an unusually dense event tempo.