Parisa Arbabzadeh

Five months of the Hormuz closure, measured.

The disruption everyone predicted was absorbed faster than expected. Oil peaked above $100, then fell back as Saudi and Emirati pipelines rerouted crude and buyers drew on reserves. The fertilizer crisis was cancelled by a single actor: China opened its export taps, and urea prices ended below where the war began.

But absorption is not resolution. Traffic through the Strait is still at a fraction of its pre-war baseline and every recovery since February has been interrupted. The pattern matters more than any single day’s count.

What remains unresolved is not logistics. It’s governance. Iran has stated the Strait will not return to pre-war conditions, with passage fees planned from August. Oman has proposed a two-corridor system; one free, one requiring Iranian approval. Whatever is agreed in Muscat will set the terms of Gulf trade long after the price charts normalize.

The flows adjusted in weeks. The rules are being rewritten in years. That’s the story we follow.

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