Shipowners and operators hoping to seize on a window of calm to exit the Persian Gulf for the first time in more than three months confronted new waves of chaos and confusion on Friday, capping a week of head-spinning developments in the war in Iran.
A preliminary agreement signed on Wednesday by President Trump and President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran began a 60-day period of negotiations between the countries. Critically, Iran promised to reopen the strait, and on Thursday the U.S. military said it had lifted a blockade it had imposed on Iranian ships since April.
But on Friday, the next phase of talks between the countries to be held in Switzerland were postponed, and Israel said it targeted Hezbollah militants after four of its soldiers were killed in Lebanon. A cease-fire was reached by Israel and Hezbollah later in the day. Within Iran, opposition surfaced to the U.S.-Iran agreement with a news agency linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps calling in an editorial for the Strait of Hormuz to be closed.
Oil prices, after falling sharply this week, wavered.
At least 25 ships moved through the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, including 14 tankers, higher than the average of recent weeks and a sign that some operators were feeling more confident, according to Kpler, a maritime data company. Most of the tankers took a route that hugs the Iranian coastline, the path used by sanctioned ships throughout the conflict. Traffic was still far below typical levels before the war, when about 130 vessels per day moved through the strait.
For shipping companies, and the 11,000 seafarers still stuck on vessels, a meaningful resumption of traffic in the Persian Gulf remained contingent on the resolution of a number of critical concerns. About 500 commercial vessels remained stranded in the gulf.
For most companies, certainty that vessels could pass was paramount.
One shipping executive, who asked not to be named out of concern for the safety of the stranded ship his company manages, said he deemed the conditions too uncertain for the ship to leave the Persian Gulf.
With the central part of the strait littered with naval mines, some executives said they were waiting for clarity about the route ships should take, the rules for getting in line and a process for exiting to avoid navigational risks, including collision, particularly amid interference with GPS and other satellite-navigation systems. There are two viable ways in and out of the Persian Gulf: the northern route, traversing Iranian waters, and the southern one, through Omani waters, which has been supervised by the U.S. Navy, but where ships risk running aground on the rocks.
There were also practical issues. After being at a standstill in the Persian Gulf for more than three months, barnacles and sea creatures were growing on the hulls of ships, impairing speed and presenting operational issues.
Significant security risks still exist, said Jakob Larsen, the chief security officer at the Baltic and International Maritime Council, or BIMCO, the world’s largest shipping association. He said he told the group’s 2,100 members that it was still risky for ships to start transiting.
“To avoid serious risks associated with an uncoordinated mass transit through the narrow inshore traffic zones, we encourage shipowners to consider waiting for further clarification and direction from the international coordination body,” Mr. Larsen said in a statement.
The Joint Maritime Information Center, which monitors threat assessments on high-risk shipping routes, on Thursday reduced the risk of transiting the strait to “moderate.” Active mine clearance operations were ongoing, an advisory route said. It said ships should avoid the central route because of mines and that the Omani route was mine free.
Nils Haupt, a spokesman for the German shipping company Hapag-Lloyd, which has four vessels and about 90 seafarers stranded in the Persian Gulf, said the vessels were ready to go but were staying put for now. “No indication right now when we would move,” he said on Friday afternoon.
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