Oil and liquefied natural gas tankers are once again disabling their tracking systems while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, raising serious concerns over global energy supply chains.
Renewed U.S.-Iran hostilities have sharply reduced visible shipping traffic through one of the world’s most critical energy chokepoints, rattling commodity markets and prompting fresh scrutiny from maritime intelligence agencies.
Total tanker traffic collapsed on one recent Sunday to just six vessels managing to clear the Strait of Hormuz, all operating in so-called dark mode to avoid detection, according to Bloomberg News citing preliminary data from Kpler.
The re-emergence of dark-mode transit stands in sharp contrast to the rising flow of tankers and LNG carriers that had been transmitting AIS positioning signals in the weeks following the signing of the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding.
As tensions escalated further, tanker owners and operators willing to navigate the chokepoint began switching off their positioning data entirely, making real-time tracking of energy flows through the strait extremely difficult.
Maritime intelligence firm Windward reported that “multi-source analysis of the eastern approaches to the Strait of Hormuz shows 8 dark vessels active in the area on July 12, none transmitting AIS.”
Windward also noted that two vessels appeared engaged in a ship-to-ship transfer off the UAE and Oman coast, with four additional dark vessels tracked moving inbound and one vessel appearing stationary in the area for the first time.
Kuwait has joined a growing group of Middle Eastern producers shipping energy cargoes in dark mode, with the LPG carrier Gas Umm Al Rowaisat, owned by the national Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, passing through the Strait and transferring its cargo onto another vessel bound for an Indian port.
The UAE, Iraq, and other Gulf producers have all increased shipments of oil, LNG, and LPG on dark-mode tankers in recent weeks, further obscuring the true volume of energy moving through the region.
Renewed tensions that began in late July and continued simmering into August are expected to keep Hormuz traffic severely constrained through the remainder of the summer months, directly pressuring global supply balances.
The disruption has prompted the U.S. Energy Information Administration to raise its third-quarter oil price forecasts, as lower supply from the region threatens to further deplete already-strained global inventories.
The EIA projects that production shut-ins across the Middle East will ease to approximately 1.68 million barrels per day in the first quarter of 2027, though around 600,000 barrels per day could still remain off the market by the end of that year.
