Preliminary shipping data published on Wednesday showed that only three cargo vessels passed through the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday. This is fewer than the four vessels that passed there the day before and below the ten-day moving average, which is about 15.
These figures may be adjusted, as some vessels typically switch off their transponders while sailing. According to data from shiptracker Kpler, at 02:00 GMT, all three vessels, including a Panamax tanker, were leaving the strait.
Nevertheless, one LNG tanker, 'Al Mafyar', reappeared inside the strait on Tuesday. Previously, it was last tracked outside the waterway on September 19, according to Kpler and LSEG data.
Before the conflict between the US and Iran, the Strait of Hormuz accounted for one-fifth of the world's oil and gas volume.
Concurrently, 22 cargo vessels passed through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, another maritime chokepoint on the southwestern tip of Yemen and a vital trade route for oil between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, on Tuesday.
The data showed that 14 vessels were heading to the Red Sea, and 8 to the Gulf of Aden. This number was lower than the average of nearly 26 vessels that used this strait over the past ten days.