A huge backlog of oil tankers that got stuck inside the Persian Gulf because of the Iran war has almost cleared out — just in time for a fresh military flare up to create renewed uncertainty about how safe the region is for ships.
In late February, when US and Israeli attacked Iran, leading to Tehran’s shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, 109 big non-Iranian crude tankers found themselves stranded in the Persian Gulf, the vast majority of them laden with cargo. More than four months into the war, just one remains. At least 50 of them exited on or after June 18, when an interim ceasefire was signed, ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg show.
