Hormuz shipping traffic hits 53% capacity

Sixty-two commercial ships crossed the Strait of Hormuz on June 24, the highest single-day count since the US-Iran conflict began in late February (CNBC). The strait is the narrow passage between Iran and Oman. Roughly a fifth of the world's oil and LNG (liquefied natural gas, chilled to minus 162°C so it can be shipped by tanker) passes through it (EIA).

Sixty-two sounds like recovery. It was only 53% of traffic on the same day last year (CNBC). The strait is physically passable but commercially abnormal, and the gap between those two facts is where European costs are quietly building up.

Every crossing carries a surcharge

The attack on the container ship Ever Lovely off Oman on June 25 showed how fragile the traffic rebound was. Tanker transits dropped from 27 on Wednesday to 13 on Friday (BOE Report). Ships that did cross hugged the Omani coastline rather than using standard shipping lanes (Straits Times).

War-risk insurance premiums (the extra charge insurers levy on vessels entering conflict zones) tell the real story. After the US-Iran framework deal, they settled at 3%-4% of hull value. That sounds modest until you compare it to the prewar rate of 0.25%, meaning ships still pay twelve to sixteen times more just to enter the strait (S&P Global, MarineInsight).

Those insurance costs feed directly into freight rates. A 140,000-tonne crude cargo from the Gulf to Northwest Europe cost $105 per tonne in mid-June, 307% above the five-year average (Cyprus Shipping News). Container lines imposed emergency surcharges up to $3,000 per 40-foot box on Gulf routes (Jordex, The Conveyor). That surcharge raises the delivered cost of manufactured goods, chemicals, and food even when oil and gas terminals are still functioning. Vessels and cargo worth a combined $125 billion remained trapped in the Gulf as of mid-June (InsuranceJournal).

Europe's awkward dependency swap

Europe does not rely on Hormuz the way Asia does. Qatar supplied just 6.6% of EU LNG imports in Q1 2026, while the United States provided 57.4% (Eurostat). The European Commission said crude prices were stable "for the time being" (European Commission).

But oil and gas trade on global benchmarks. When Hormuz disruption holds back a large share of global LNG supply, European and Asian buyers bid against each other for what remains. Europe has grown more exposed to exactly this competition: after cutting Russian pipeline gas, its US LNG share rose from 28% in 2021 to 63% by early 2026 (Chatham House). Qatari expansion was supposed to diversify that concentrated reliance. Hormuz disruption delays the diversification.

An uncomfortable side effect is already visible. With Qatari LNG delayed, Europe fills the gap from whatever is available. Some of that available supply is Russian Yamal LNG. The Maritime Executive reported that EU ports imported more Russian LNG in early 2026 than in the same period last year (Maritime Executive). Cutting one dependency deepened another.

The costs you don't see on terminal dashboards

European wholesale gas (TTF, the Dutch benchmark that sets the reference price across the continent) hovered around €40-42/MWh in late June (Investing France). No European terminal has reported a physical supply constraint. German diesel prices briefly dipped below pre-crisis levels, even as petrol stayed elevated (Tagesschau).

So where is the damage? In three layers below headline prices. Freight surcharges raise delivered costs for everything shipped through Gulf routes. Insurance premiums get passed on to cargo owners and eventually consumers. And traders pay more now because they price the chance of later disruption, a risk premium baked into every forward contract. Germany's chemical industry association said it could not give a reliable annual forecast amid feedstock uncertainty (Chemie Technik). The EU imports 97% of its crude oil from abroad (Bruegel), which means it is exposed whenever global oil prices stay elevated for long enough.

Market participants told S&P Global that genuine reopening means "functional, insurable and sustained commercial maritime traffic under stable and commercially acceptable risk conditions" (S&P Global). In plain terms: ships can cross reliably, owners can insure them at normal cost, and the route holds week after week. By that standard, Hormuz is open in the narrow sense. It is not normal. Europe pays the difference through insurance, freight, and energy prices before any terminal runs short.