GolddiggerPatriot (@GolddiggerPatriot)

H/t hippielouie "...This is the most consequential thing happening in the war, and it has almost no public profile. So the strait is simultaneously closed and open. Lloyd's List recorded just 73 transits in the week of August 10-16 — a trickle by any normal measure. Yet millions of barrels are still getting out, because the definition of "shipping" has been rebuilt around the blockade rather than through it. What I find remarkable is what this reveals about modern chokepoints. Bessent says Hormuz will be "irrelevant" in two years. Maybe. But right now it's relevant in the most exhausting possible way: a chokepoint that neither side can close or open, kept half-alive by 150 ships running dark. The blockade didn't win. Neither did the strait. Everyone is just paying more." WORLD COMPASS @world_compass_ For weeks now, tankers have been running the Strait of Hormuz at night with their transponders off and their lights dark. Fifteen to twenty a night. Roughly 10 million barrels a day — about half the pre-war volume — quietly reaching the global market. Two US officials confirmed the operation to Axios this week. This is the most consequential thing happening in the war, and it has almost no public profile. Here's how it works. Shuttle tankers make the run through the strait along a southern channel hugging the Omani coast, AIS switched off. Outside the strait, off Fujairah and Sohar, they transfer their cargo to larger vessels waiting in the open water, then turn around and go back for more. Reuters identified at least 116 vessels involved by mid-June. Bloomberg now counts around 150 gathered off Oman, up from about 40 in January. Saudi Arabia's Bahri has positioned 16 VLCCs there with more coming. The US military has been overseeing the ship-to-ship transfers since May. So the strait is simultaneously closed and open. Lloyd's List recorded just 73 transits in the week of August 10-16 — a trickle by any normal measure. Yet millions of barrels are still getting out, because the definition of "shipping" has been rebuilt around the blockade rather than through it. What I find remarkable is what this reveals about modern chokepoints. For fifty years the strategic assumption was binary: Hormuz open or Hormuz closed, and closure meant catastrophe. What's emerged instead is a third state nobody modeled — a dark, expensive, militarily escorted grey channel operating at half capacity indefinitely. Not victory, not collapse. A permanent workaround. And it's genuinely expensive. Tanker rates on Gulf-China runs are above $520,000 a day. Insurance is brutal. Vessels with histories in sanctioned trades are being welcomed back into mainstream markets because there aren't enough willing shipowners. The system is functioning — at a price that gets passed to every consumer on earth. Bessent says Hormuz will be "irrelevant" in two years. Maybe. But right now it's relevant in the most exhausting possible way: a chokepoint that neither side can close or open, kept half-alive by 150 ships running dark. The blockade didn't win. Neither did the strait. Everyone is just paying more. #StraitOfHormuz #OilMarkets #Shipping #Iran #Geopolitics #EnergySecurity