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Commercial Vessel Flows Diverge at Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb

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Commercial shipping traffic data over the weekend on Monday showed diverging patterns across the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, with heightened US naval enforcement and shifting risk calculations reshaping traffic via the key maritime chokepoint.

The latest data from MarineTraffic showed 29 confirmed crossings via the Hormuz from July 24-26.

"Activity fell from 12 crossings on 24 July to 6 on 25 July, before increasing to 11 on 26 July," according to MarineTraffic.

The maritime data analysis firm said routing via the strategic waterway remained evenly split, with 14 transits using the Iranian Unilateral Scheme, 14 classified as "route undetermined," and one using the Hormuz Traffic Separation Scheme.

The activity in Hormuz contrasts sharply with the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which saw 100 verified crossings over the same period, 51 vessels entering the Red Sea and 49 exiting.

"Daily activity was broadly stable, with 35 crossings on 24 July, 31 on 25 July and 34 on 26 July," according to MarineTraffic.

The ship tracker said that 90 of those ships followed the established Traffic Separation Scheme, while 10 completed dark transits with their tracking systems disabled.

Several vessels that had previously delayed or reversed course ultimately completed their journeys, pointing to operators continuously calibrating risk rather than abandoning the route entirely.

Meanwhile, the US Central Command said in an X post on Monday that Washington's blockade against Iran in the Strait of Hormuz has redirected 17 commercial vessels, disabled two, and boarded two to enforce compliance.

The International Maritime Organization's daily Strait of Hormuz incident tracker as of Monday showed one confirmed incident in the Strait over the weekend. This brings the total number of confirmed maritime security incidents in the region to 62 as of Monday.

The IMO tracker provides a daily log of verified strikes on ships attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz since the conflict began, with the earliest incident recorded on March 1.

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