Does Hormuz traffic get back to normal?
Will Strait of Hormuz vessel traffic return to normal by October 31, 2026?
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The story so far
In June 2025, the Twelve-Day War turned the world's most important oil chokepoint into a war zone. Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz collapsed — and with it, a fifth of the world's oil supply hung in the balance. By late September 2026, crude was moving again: trackers put the seven-day average near 13.5 million barrels a day, roughly the prewar pace, helped by military escorts and pipelines that bypass the strait. But refined products are still a trickle — under 700,000 barrels a day against 3.6 million before the war — and on September 29, three tankers were struck by projectiles inside the strait. The crude is flowing. The question is whether normal traffic — every kind of ship, not just oil — has actually come back.
How this resolves
This resolves YES if IMF Portwatch's published 7-day moving average of Strait of Hormuz transit calls ("Arrivals of Ships") reaches 60 or higher for any date on or before October 31, 2026. The feed is IMF Portwatch's Hormuz transit-calls page — the same PortWatch data Morrowfly's own chokepoint monitor reads. Transit calls count every ship type Portwatch reports: container, dry bulk, roll-on/roll-off, general cargo, and tankers. If no date through October 31 reaches 60, it resolves NO.
Play with it
Run the what-if toy to build your own read before you call it.
- What if Hormuz stays choked through winter?The strait has effectively collapsed since the Feb 28, 2026 strikes on Iran: EIA put 2Q26 transits at 4.9 mb/d against a 21.6 mb/d 4Q25 baseline, and Kpler's strongest August week showed 4.26 mb/d of crude leaving. Transits run at 3–7 vessels a day, and the main Saudi bypass pipeline was shut by drone attack in September. This guide models how long the choke persists through winter, whether the remaining ~4–5 mb/d of crude flows erode further, and how much stockpile cover buffers the gap — while flagging the widely disputed flow figures.Open the scenario →
- What if energy infrastructure gets hit next?The US-Iran war is underway since February 28, 2026; Hormuz tanker traffic has slowed to a trickle, and a mid-September 2026 drone attack shut Saudi Arabia's East-West Pipeline, which had been moving 4-5 million barrels a day. This scenario models NEW physical damage to Gulf energy infrastructure beyond what has already happened — to processing plants, export terminals, or pipelines on either side of the Gulf. Tension, threats, or shipping rerouting alone do not count: the dial only counts operator- or EIA-confirmed physical capacity destroyed.Open the scenario →
Related receipts
What actually happened last time something like this was on the table.
Illustrative question. Not a prediction. Not financial advice. Votes are anonymous counts — they measure players, never a representative sample.