Hormuz paralysis enters fourth month, squeezing US shippers and freight rates

The Strait of Hormuz remained effectively shut to commercial traffic this week, dragging the global supply-chain crisis past its hundredth day and pushing freight costs facing American importers sharply higher.

As of 14 June, the waterway through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil and LNG normally moves was carrying a trickle of vessels, with monitoring services recording transit counts in the low single digits against a pre-crisis baseline near 94 per day. The choke point has been commercially unnavigable since US and Israeli strikes on Iran in late February triggered the closure, the withdrawal of war-risk insurance, and the suspension of transits by every major carrier.

The pressure intensified mid-week. Iran's Revolutionary Guard claimed it attacked two tankers attempting passage and declared the strait closed to all shipping, a closure US Central Command disputed, insisting commercial vessels were still moving. American forces, meanwhile, disabled a third tanker in the Gulf of Oman, the latest in a series of interdictions tied to alleged blockade violations.

For US shippers, the cost signal was unmistakable. Asia-to-US West Coast spot rates jumped 51 per cent in a single week to $4,836 per forty-foot box, while East Coast rates climbed 25 per cent to $6,336, the steepest one-week moves since last summer's tariff-driven surge. Carriers have continued passing inflated bunker costs through to customers via fuel surcharges.

The squeeze arrives just as American ports brace for an unusually front-loaded peak. The National Retail Federation projects US ports will handle 2.25 million TEU in June, up 14.3 per cent year on year, before volumes turn sharply negative through the late summer as inflation and consumer caution bite. The takeaway for importers is to plan around elevated volumes now and a softer autumn.