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The Strait of Hormuz

The Strait of Hormuz
Daily SITREP by MOCEAN
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Methodology: How The Strait of Hormuz Counts Ships, Days and Prices

Version 1.0 · Published 23 Oct 2026 · See the revision log at the bottom for changes

Every number on this site is defined the same way every day. This page says exactly what “13 transits”, “Day 237”, “effectively closed” and “Brent $113.92” mean, where each figure comes from, how late it can be, and what it cannot tell you. If a definition changes, the change is dated in the revision log and the dataset is regenerated.

Status as of 13 Nov 2026: Closed, Day 258. 10 transits on 12 Nov 2026 vs ~88/day pre-crisis. Brent $95.18. Full SITREP →

Definitions

TermDefinitionSource
TransitOne vessel passing through the Strait of Hormuz in either direction during one UTC calendar day, as identified at vessel level (AIS-visible plus “dark” vessels the provider has attributed). A ship that crosses twice counts twice.Windward Daily Intelligence
Data dateThe last complete UTC day for which the provider has published a count at the time the SITREP is written. It is usually 1–4 days before the SITREP date.—
Inbound / outboundTransits heading into the Persian Gulf (inbound) or out towards the Gulf of Oman (outbound), per the provider’s split. They sum to the transit count.Windward
Pre-crisis baseline~88 transits per day: the approximate 2025 daily average of commercial vessel transits through the strait, used as the denominator for every “% of normal” figure on the site.Windward (pre-war averages); consistent with UNCTAD / Lloyd’s List figures of roughly 85–95 commercial transits a day in 2024–2025
Day of closureDays elapsed since 28 February 2026, with 28 Feb 2026 = Day 0, counted in UTC. So 1 Mar 2026 = Day 1, 30 Sep 2026 = Day 214, 23 Oct 2026 = Day 237. The counter does not pause for partial reopenings.Site convention
BrentBrent crude price in US dollars per barrel as reported by straits.live at the timestamp quoted in the SITREP (usually 0400–0600Z on the SITREP date). Pre-war reference: about $72/bbl.straits.live
US gas averageAAA national average price of regular gasoline, US dollars per gallon, on the date quoted.AAA
Oil flowEstimated crude outflow through the strait in million barrels per day (M bbl/d), including terminal loadings and ship-to-ship transfers. Pre-war reference: ~17.1M bbl/d of crude, ~20M bbl/d of all petroleum liquids.Vortexa via Windward
War-risk premiumAdditional hull war-risk insurance rate for a Gulf transit expressed as a multiple of the peacetime rate.straits.live (which cites Lloyd’s market data)

Status rubric: Closed, Restricted, Open

The headline status is set mechanically from the transit count so that it cannot drift with the day’s wording:

StatusRuleAt the ~88/day baseline
Closed (“effectively closed to normal commercial traffic”)Transits below 25% of baselineFewer than 22 ships a day
Restricted25% to below 75% of baseline22 to 65 ships a day
Open75% of baseline or more66 or more ships a day

“Closed” therefore describes commercial traffic volume, not a legal or physical blockade. Ships do get through; oil volume is reported separately precisely because hull counts and barrels tell different stories.

Why the count is late, and why it changes

  • Lag: vessel-level counts need a full UTC day to close and then provider processing, so a SITREP written on the 23rd usually carries the 21st or 22nd. The data date is always stated.
  • Dark ships: vessels with AIS switched off are added by the provider from satellite and other sources; these attributions can arrive later and may revise a day’s count upward by one or two.
  • Gaps: when the provider publishes no count for a day, the SITREP repeats the last complete day and says so. The dataset leaves that day without a new data point rather than interpolating.
  • Disagreement: official statements (for example CENTCOM’s “95 percent of vessels are getting through”) measure different things from vessel counts. The SITREP reports both; the headline number is always the Windward vessel count.

Sources

  • Windward: vessel-level transit counts, inbound/outbound split, dark-ship attribution, GPS-jamming and threat-zone incident log.
  • Vortexa (via Windward): crude and product outflow volumes.
  • straits.live: Brent price snapshots, war-risk premiums, ships holding at anchor, bypass-pipeline utilisation.
  • AAA: US national and state average gasoline prices.
  • US Central Command, the White House, the IMO, and wire and broadcast reporting (AP, Reuters, CBS News, Al Jazeera, Fox News, The National) for diplomatic and military developments. Each is named with its date in the SITREP where it is used.

Known limitations

  • The site relies on a single provider for the headline transit count. There is no independent second count for most days.
  • The ~88/day baseline is an approximation; different sources quote 85–95 depending on vessel classes included.
  • “Our estimate” figures (for example, how many cents of the US pump price are attributable to the oil-price rise) are simple arithmetic from the stated inputs and are labelled as estimates wherever they appear.
  • Claims by parties to the conflict (attacks, mines, seizures) are reported as claims with attribution until a second source confirms them.
  • Historical SITREPs are corrected only under the corrections policy; the archive is otherwise left as written.

Data pipeline

Each SITREP is written as a dated WordPress post. The dataset, the per-post question-and-answer block, the news sitemap and llms.txt are generated from the published posts at request time, so the numbers in every machine-readable output are the same numbers a reader sees. The pipeline was built by Shellback SEO.

Revision log

DateChange
23 Oct 2026Methodology v1.0 published. Day-count convention fixed at 28 Feb 2026 = Day 0; the SITREPs of 29 Sep–8 Oct 2026, which had been numbered one day low, were corrected to match (each day count increased by one; transit figures unchanged).

Background & explainers

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