What cargo ships are passing Hormuz strait?

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern coastal city of Tyre’s Al Hosh. [Kawnat Haju, AFP]

Just a trickle of cargo ships and tankers - most of them Iranian - have made it through the Strait of Hormuz since Iranian forces blocked the crucial trade route in the Middle East war.

Here are facts and figures about vessels that have passed through the 167-kilometre long strait since the war broke out with US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28.

From March 1 to 19, commodities carriers made just 114 crossings, according to analytics firm Kpler, a decrease of 95 percent from peacetime.

Of these, 69 crossings were by oil tankers, and more than half were loaded, Kpler data showed, with most travelling east out of the strait.

Traffic "is being led mostly by bulk carriers, tankers and container ships," said Richard Meade, editor of leading shipping intelligence journal Lloyd's List, in a briefing on Thursday.

"But we have seen a bit of an uptick in gas carriers moving over the last week."

Most of the ships passing the strait are owned or flagged in Iran, said Bridget Diakun, an analyst at data company Lloyd's List Intelligence.

After that, Greek ships accounted for 18 percent of crossings and Chinese ones 10 percent in recent days, she said.

"Although Iran is continuing to control the Strait and export its own oil, everything else is largely still at a standstill," said Meade.

Overall, since the war started, around a third of the ships transiting the strait were under US, EU or UK sanctions, according to an AFP analysis of passage data.

Of the oil and gas tankers, more than half were under sanctions.
Since March 16 "anything heading westbound has been shadow fleet, gas carriers or tankers; they absolutely dominate the traffic going through," Diakun told the Lloyds briefing.

Commodities analysts at JPMorgan bank said in a report released Monday that most of the oil passing through the strait was headed for Asia, principally China.