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Ghost tankers: in the Gulf, the meter runs at $100,000 a day

The blockade reimposed on 14 July closes the trap on the Gulf's oil fleet again. One figure is doing the rounds, 230 loaded tankers stuck; satellite tracking tells a different story. An autopsy of the count, then the real accounting of a closed strait: demurrage above $100,000 per ship per day, war risk premiums settled at 5% of hull value, and a 20% toll on top.

14 min read#oil#energy#geopolitics#iran#supply chain#markets
dated revision: July 17, 2026French originalprimary sourcesno tracker

The Gem No. 2 entered the Persian Gulf two days before the war began. Loaded with Saudi crude in March, the supertanker never left: as of 9 July, ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg made it the last big vessel still trapped inside with its cargo, out of the 109 counted at the height of round one. Five days later, the American blockade was reimposed, and the trap closed again on a fleet that had only just extracted itself. The primetime address on the evening of 16 July, billed as an update on Iran and on elections, fits a doctrine on display since the 13th: the United States proclaims itself the “GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT” and intends to be paid for the role. For every ship caught on the wrong side of the chokepoint, a precise accounting has restarted: days of waiting, insurance premiums, and charterparty clauses. That accounting, rarely spelled out, is what this article quantifies.

One figure in circulation, three different measurements

The number looping through coverage since 14 July has it that around 230 loaded tankers are stuck inside the Gulf with nowhere to deliver. It deserves an autopsy, because it probably does not measure what it is being made to say. The most rigorous count available, Bloomberg’s vessel tracking, told the opposite story last week: 109 big non-Iranian crude tankers trapped in late February when the strait closed, at least 50 of them out from 18 June onwards thanks to the ceasefire, and a single one left by 9 July, the Gem No. 2. CNBC had already put the crude evacuated by freed vessels at 35 million barrels by 24 June. The stock of trapped ships from round one was nearly cleared when round two began.

The 230 most likely measures something else: tankers present in the Gulf at a given moment, which in normal times is unremarkable, since hundreds of vessels load and discharge there continuously. The question for round two is not how many are inside but how many will stay stuck, and it has no published answer yet. At the worst of round one, Saudi Aramco’s CEO Amin Nasser spoke of more than 600 vessels immobilised inside and 240 waiting on the other side of the strait. The flow data, meanwhile, is already unambiguous: according to Kpler, Hormuz voyages fell 52% week on week around the weekend of 12 July, and Al Jazeera counted six passages in twelve hours on 11 July, against 18 to 22 a day before fighting resumed. Kpler analyst Muyu Xu sums up the shift: the question is no longer the size of the backlog, but who is still willing to go in and out.

Trapped tankers: the count and its caption Big loaded non-Iranian crude tankers trapped in the Gulf (Bloomberg tracking), and the 14 July press figure. Late February (closure) 109 Out after 18 June ≥ 50 (truce) Left by 9 July 1 (the Gem No. 2) "~230" (press, 14 July) different measure: ships present, not ships trapped Flows: 18 to 22 passages a day before the fighting; 6 in twelve hours on 11 July; voyages down 52% in a week. Sources: Bloomberg (ship tracking), TheStreet, Al Jazeera, Kpler.
Round one's stock of trapped ships was nearly cleared by 9 July. The 230 figure conflates presence with entrapment; round two's count has yet to be made. Sources: Bloomberg, CNBC, TheStreet, Al Jazeera, Kpler.

The meter: over $100,000 per ship per day

An idle tanker is never free. When the wait occurs during the commercial operations set out in the contract, it is billed as demurrage, the daily indemnity owed to the shipowner; outside that framework, it counts as detention or plain hire. Round one’s orders of magnitude are documented: in early March, with roughly 700 tankers clustered on both sides of the strait, maritime law firm Fortior Law put VLCC hire and demurrage rates at more than $100,000 per ship per day, potentially $70 million a day in waiting costs across the blocked fleet.

The real battle is legal: who pays for those days? The answer sleeps in the charterparties, and it is less obvious than it looks. Fortior Law notes that under standard clauses, a state closing the strait can qualify as “restraint of princes”, which shields the charterer; but if the contract carries a specific Hormuz clause with an agreed daily rate, the owner collects without even a duty to mitigate. Protection and indemnity clubs such as NorthStandard have been publishing entire FAQs since February to referee between owners and charterers. The financial translation: the cost of a closed strait never disappears, it migrates along the contractual chain, from charterers to refiners and then into product prices, with a dispute at every link. Our survey of the supply chain already documented the downstream floors; this is floor zero, the ship itself.

The war premium, the strait’s real gatekeeper

Before paying demurrage, a ship must first have agreed to enter. The real regulator of traffic is neither the blockade nor the mines: it is the war risk insurance premium, requoted sometimes from one day to the next for every transit. In peacetime, the Lloyd’s Market Association describes it as little more than notional. Before the war, the market quoted 0.15% to 0.25% of hull value for a Gulf voyage. In March, at the peak, Lloyd’s List reported quotes of 2.5% to 5% for a Hormuz transit, 5% to 10% and beyond for vessels with a US, UK or Israeli nexus, meaning $10m to $14m asked for a VLCC worth $138m. After June’s memorandum, the premium had eased back towards 2%. Since the attacks of early July it has settled around 5% of vessel value, described as the new market norm, according to market estimates reported by Xinhua; Neil Roberts, the LMA’s head of marine, describes rates that move as the risk moves, softening after the memorandum, tightening after the ship attacks of the week of 7 July, the same ones logged in our inventory of vessels struck.

Two caveats stop this from becoming a story of vanishing insurance. First, cover exists: in the LMA’s March survey, 88% of underwriters were still writing hull war risk and more than 90% cargo, and the association insisted that ships were staying put because masters and owners judged the safety risk too high, not because insurers refused. Second, when the private market genuinely retreats, the public floor steps in: the World Economic Forum described as early as April governments becoming insurers of last resort for strategic transits. The war risk premium works, in effect, like a market toll: it does not close the strait, it prices it, and reprices it at every incident.

The war risk premium, the strait's market toll Indicative premium per transit, as % of hull value. Reported quotes, vessel-dependent. Pre-war 0.15-0.25% March peak up to ~10% After the MoU (June) ~2% Mid-July ~5% (norm) For a VLCC worth $138m: ~$0.3m pre-war, $10m to $14m asked at the March peak, ~$7m at 5%. Sources: Lloyd's List (11 March 2026), LMA (23 March 2026), market estimates via Xinhua (11 July 2026).
The war risk premium is requoted at every incident: eased after June's memorandum, settled around 5% of hull value by mid-July. Sources: Lloyd's List, LMA, Xinhua.

The official toll on top

Since 13 July an openly declared layer sits on top of that private stack. Announcing the reinstated blockade, effective 14 July at 4pm Washington time, Donald Trump declared the United States would collect 20% on all cargo shipped through the strait, as payment for the security provided. The International Maritime Organization replied that there is no legal basis for imposing a toll on transit through an international strait, whose right of passage may not be suspended or impeded. Tehran contested not the principle but the till: foreign minister Abbas Araghchi claimed the guardian’s role for Iran, judging that “20% is of course too much” and promising a fair tariff. History’s irony is that Iran already ran the experiment this spring, collecting its own Hormuz tolls in USDT on Tron to route around OFAC. Nobody knows today how an American levy would be collected, or on what base; but at 20% of a VLCC cargo, roughly $33m at current Brent prices, merely stating it is enough to weigh on chartering decisions, which is probably its primary function.

One VLCC transit: the cost stack Orders of magnitude in millions of dollars, $138m hull, ~2 million barrels of cargo. Quotes from different dates. Pre-war war risk ~0.3 War risk at ~5% (mid-July) ~7 Extreme quotes (March) 10 to 14 Announced 20% toll (if applied) ~33 (20% of 2m bbl at ~$83/bbl) Plus the wait: demurrage and hire above $0.1m per idle day (March estimate). Sources: Lloyd's List, Xinhua, Fortior Law, TheStreet. Toll line: l0g calculation, order of magnitude.
Insurance, waiting, toll: each layer makes the same barrel dearer before it even sails. The quotes date from different moments of the crisis and are flagged as such. Sources: Lloyd's List, Xinhua, Fortior Law, TheStreet; toll line is an l0g calculation.

The opposite reading

The picture of a fleet caught in a trap invites three serious objections. First, round one’s trap proved porous. Owners eventually extracted nearly every trapped ship, riding the truce but also sailing dark; Bloomberg was still observing, on 14 July, six sanctioned supertankers leaving the Gulf in a week with transponders off, carrying the equivalent of 12 million barrels, on the Iranian side this time. A blockade, even backed by the world’s largest navy, filters more than it seals. Second, most of the costs described here remain a scenario until the contracts are unwound; part of the demurrage will never be paid, absorbed by exoneration clauses, settlements between parties or plain write-offs. Third, nothing says round two will match round one’s scale. The market itself only half believes it, with Brent back up to $82-$87, far from May’s peak of $114. If the diplomatic track reopens, the premium will fall as it did in June, and the episode will end as a few weeks of expensive freight rather than a physical rupture. On the other side, the White House promises to escalate strikes until Tehran yields on Hormuz: between those two paths, the meter keeps running.

Dials to watch

Four instruments will tell whether the Gulf’s fleet becomes ghostly again or merely slowed. The trapped-vessel count from satellite tracking, Bloomberg’s or Kpler’s, which will give round two its true measure where the 230 figure was an ambiguous snapshot. War risk premiums and the Listed Areas of Lloyd’s Joint War Committee, requoted at every incident, the best thermometer of risk as perceived by those who carry it. Daily Hormuz transits, whose collapse or normalisation reads in near real time. And the structure of the oil market itself: a deepening backwardation will say that the crude idling on the water is starting to be missed on land, precisely the scenario where the strategic reserves, already dented, become the last cushion. One party’s voluntary floating storage is another’s trap: the first waits for a better price, the second for a right of way. The difference between the two, again this week, is measured in tens of thousands of dollars per ship per day.

Sources

This article is journalistic analysis and does not constitute investment advice. Per-transit costs are orders of magnitude drawn from quotes reported at different dates of the crisis, flagged as such; the theoretical toll figure is an l0g calculation. Data as of the dates of the cited sources.

This analysis is not investment advice.

// cite this analysis

l0g, “Ghost tankers: in the Gulf, the meter runs at $100,000 a day”, l0g.fr, published July 17, 2026, updated July 17, 2026, https://l0g.fr/en/analysis/gulf-ghost-tankers-the-meter-is-running/

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