On the second day of a fragile ceasefire between the United States and Iran, only a handful of ships dared to transit the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow chokepoint through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply normally flows. Ship tracker data identified just two India-bound oil tankers among those making the passage: one carrying crude from Iran’s Bandar Abbas port to New Mangalore, and another ferrying cargo from the UAE to India. The thin traffic underscored a stark reality: even with guns nominally silent, the commercial world is not yet convinced it is safe to resume business as usual.
The war — details of whose origin and escalation have been documented extensively elsewhere — has disrupted global energy supply chains, forced military deployments across the Persian Gulf, and left both Washington and Tehran scrambling to declare victory from the rubble.
