More than two months into the Iran war, shipping companies are being whipsawed by shifting U.S. policy and persistent security threats, with hundreds of vessels and thousands of mariners stranded in the Persian Gulf as the Strait of Hormuz remains de facto closed. The Associated Press reported Wednesday that President Donald Trump last Sunday announced “Project Freedom,” a U.S.-guided path for ships to exit the strait; two vessels made the transit, but by Tuesday Trump paused the effort to clear the way for a possible diplomatic resolution. The rapid reversal has left ship owners, insurers and supply chain managers struggling to assess when the vital chokepoint might safely reopen.
“Ultimately, it’s still going to come back to the primary issues of risk and safety,” said Sean Pribyl, a maritime attorney at Holland & Knight in Washington, D.C. “It seems as though we’re not anywhere near to returning to a free flow of traffic and navigation through the strait.”
The numbers underscore the scale of the crisis. Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday that more than 1,550 vessels with roughly 22,500 mariners are trapped inside the Persian Gulf. Before the war, 100 to 135 vessels transited the strait each day, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence, but traffic has dwindled as Iran demands that ships undergo a vetting process run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
That process requires vessels to follow a route near Iran’s coast, submit crew and cargo information, and in some cases pay a fee. Paying the IRGC, however, carries its own peril: the U.S. and the European Union have designated the IRGC a terrorist organization, exposing shippers to sanctions.
The financial toll is mounting. Insurance costs for vessels in the region have shot up from less than 1% of the value of goods on a ship to anywhere from 3% to 10%, said Ed Anderson, a supply chain professor at the University of Texas’s McCombs School of Business. Even with war risk insurance, most shippers have judged the crossing too unsafe. “Ferrying out a couple of ships has not really affected the shipping industry in any way whatsoever,” Anderson said.
Hapag-Lloyd AG, one of the world’s largest container shipping companies, said the crisis is costing it $60 million a week, driven by soaring fuel and insurance prices. The firm has four ships stranded in the Gulf and has suspended some transport services, turning to alternative routes that are “limited in capacity and cannot completely replace the regular maritime routes through the region,” the company said in a statement.
The sporadic movement of vessels has done little to restore confidence. Maersk’s U.S.-flagged Alliance Fairfax vehicle carrier exited the Gulf on Monday “accompanied by U.S. military assets” without incident, the company said. But that lone transit has not shifted the broader risk calculus.
Meanwhile, the danger remains acute. CMA CGM Group, a French shipping giant, said Wednesday that one of its cargo container ships was damaged in an attack while attempting to transit the strait, underscoring the threat from Iranian speedboats and drones.
Experts caution that even a ceasefire would not trigger an immediate return to normal. “Energy markets are unlikely to return quickly to precrisis assumptions,” said Kaho Yu, head of energy and resources at risk intelligence firm Verisk Maplecroft. “Refiners, shippers, and commodity traders will remain cautious until there is clearer evidence that Hormuz disruptions will not re-escalate.”
Diplomatic signals, such as a meeting Wednesday between Iranian and Chinese diplomats emphasizing de-escalation, offer a glimmer of hope, but Yu noted that “Hormuz remains the real metric that will be watched. Tanker traffic and energy flows over the coming weeks and months are likely to matter more than diplomatic language.”
Razat Gaurav, CEO of supply chain management firm Kinaxis, warned that ocean shipping “won’t snap back overnight” — it typically takes weeks or months for capacity and routes to normalize. Shipments of liquid natural gas and sulfur may move faster as backlogs clear, he said, but “most shippers will remain cautious until stability proves durable.”
The U.S. Navy is blockading Iran’s ports outside the strait in the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea, part of the pressure campaign that keeps the chokepoint frozen. But for global supply chains and the thousands of mariners stuck at sea, the path to reopening Hormuz remains uncertain.