Australia's fuel supply and reserves

The Strait of Hormuz is closed and has been since February. On the IMF PortWatch series, 6 September recorded 6 transits against a normal baseline near 88, about 7 per cent: up from the floor of 1 a day recorded through mid-August, and the series has read between 2 and 7 a day since. That figure is a floor on what can be measured rather than on what moves. Counts that measure differently, and are not directly comparable, put movement higher: Kpler and Lloyd's List Intelligence tallies ran at roughly 12 to 14 a day in late August and early September, and the International Energy Agency's September report puts total Gulf exports in August at about 13 million barrels a day, nearly half pre-war levels, with the crude that still flows going through bypass pipelines and under United States naval escort. About 400 vessels were holding position away from berth awaiting passage in mid-September. Commercial access is the harder constraint. Six war-risk insurers have withdrawn cover, hull war-risk cover is reported at 7.5 to 10 per cent of vessel value against about 0.25 per cent before the war, war-risk cover for a single supertanker passage is reported at about US$10 million, and the major carriers are still routing via the Cape of Good Hope. The fighting has widened into a tanker war. Two supertankers, the Bahri-owned Sidr and the Sinokor-operated Senegal Prosperity, were struck near Khasab on 31 August and disabled, the crew of the second evacuated by Omani authorities; the United States struck Iranian tankers for the first time on 2 September, three more on 5 September after Iranian missiles were fired at a carrier group, and destroyed five Iranian crude carriers on 8 September, while Iran claimed strikes on eight tankers and attacked a United States air base in Jordan; a vessel was struck near Qeshm on 12 September, with Iranian state media reporting one crew member killed. The Joint Maritime Information Centre rates the regional threat severe and cites the continuing risk of drifting or uncharted mines, though United States forces reported clearing more than 100 suspected mines from the traffic separation scheme on 25 August. Diplomacy has produced paper rather than traffic. The memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran expired on 17 August with no extension. Iran and Oman announced a temporary seven-mile route on 26 August, inbound through Iranian waters and subject to Iranian permission, and said on 7 September that the talks were in their final stages, but the regional meeting in Salalah due on 14 September was postponed with no new date after Saudi objections to the wording, and no ship has been reported transiting under the arrangement. The Revolutionary Guard said on 28 August the strait stays closed to any vessel seeking passage without Iran's approval, Iran says it will not fully reopen until the United States lifts its blockade and sanctions, and Washington applied what it called its toughest sanctions yet on 24 August and says it is not in a hurry to talk. The Red Sea is a second front rather than the workaround. A Bahri tanker was hit by a Houthi missile off Yanbu on 24 August; a Houthi missile and drone wave on 8 September wounded 73 people and set fires at the Jizan refinery and two fuel terminals; on 11 September Houthi forces took Mayun island inside the Bab al-Mandeb strait and declared the passage safe for all shipping except Saudi vessels; and after drones launched from Iraq hit pumping stations on the East-West pipeline, Saudi Arabia announced a precautionary closure of the line on 11 September, with repairs put at three to six weeks. Non-Saudi traffic is still moving: Lloyd's List Intelligence counted at least 302 Bab al-Mandeb transits in the week to 23 August and 202 traceable transits the week after, with Suez about 36 per cent below normal. Malacca and the Indonesian straits are open, at elevated risk. The full Hormuz explainer lives on /methodology for journalists.