How many cargo ships are passing Hormuz strait?

Just a trickle of cargo ships and tankers has made it through the Strait of Hormuz since Iranian forces blocked the crucial trade route in the Middle East war.

Here are facts and figures about vessels that have passed through the 167-kilometre (104-mile) strait since the war broke out with US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28.

- Shipping near zero -

The channel typically sees around 120 daily transits, according to shipping industry intelligence site Lloyd's List.

From March 1 to 18, commodities carriers made just 105 crossings, according to analytics firm Kpler -- a decrease of more than 95 percent.

- 60 oil, gas tankers -

Sixty of them were oil and gas tankers and of those nearly six out of 10 were loaded, Kpler data showed.

Three-quarters of the crossings were by ships leaving the Gulf.

- 35 sanctioned ships -

More from this section

Stagflation risk in US 'quite high': Nobel-winning economist Stiglitz

War in the Middle East: latest developments

Brazil starts to restrict minors' access to social media

Around a third of the ships transiting the strait were under US, EU or UK sanctions, according to an AFP analysis of passage data.

Overall 17 of them sailed under an Iranian flag. Of the oil and gas tankers, 47 percent were sanctioned.

- Oil to China -

Natasha Kaneva, a commodities analyst at JPMorgan bank, said in a report released Monday that most of the oil passing through the strait was headed for Asia, principally China.

Data in the report indicated it was receiving more than a million barrels day -- far below the pre-war level of nearly five million.

- 1.3 mn barrels of Iran oil -

Kaneva said overall 98 percent of the observable oil traffic through the strait was Iranian, averaging 1.3 million barrels a day "in early March".

A fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas passes through the strait in peacetime.

rlp/jwp/rl