AS OF 28 SEP
THE BOARD

ZEWAY › Hormuz

Is the Strait of Hormuz open?

Closed as of 28 September 2026. 1 ship crossed on the latest day IMF PortWatch has published, against a pre-crisis normal of 85 a day. The Gulf tanker dark index, DARKCON, is 2 of 5, Shadow Tide. Every line below carries its own date; the live board refreshes while it is open.

Hormuz tonight

The flap is set by the count; the remarks are typed by hand and dated.
Strait of Hormuz · CLOSEDIMF PORTWATCH, LATEST PUBLISHED DAY 20 SEP
SHIPS ON THE LATEST DAY1
NORMAL, THE PRE-CRISIS MEDIAN85
LOAD1%
DETOUR1 PIPE LEFT
WAR RISK40×hull premium as a multiple of the pre-war rate
WHO NEEDS ITVLCC · LNG · LPG · NAPHTHA

Remarks, as typed: IRGC PASSAGE BAN SINCE 28 FEB · PORTWATCH 20 SEP: ONE TRANSIT; CENTCOM CLAIMS ~60 CROSSINGS ON 24 SEP, REUTERS COUNTED NINE · PETROLINE OFF SINCE THE 11 SEP STRIKES, A LOW-RATE RESTART REPORTED 22 SEP IS UNCONFIRMED AND NO YANBU CARGO HAS LOADED; HABSHAN–FUJAIRAH IS THE ONE BYPASS RUNNING, 1.5M BPD · SIX VLCCS LOADED ~12M BBL AT RAS TANURA AND JU’AYMAH 21 SEP, THE BUSIEST DAY SINCE BEFORE THE WAR; FOUR CAME IN BALLAST 15–17 SEP, AND 25 OF 26 INBOUND BALLASTERS 12–20 SEP SHOWED NO DESTINATION (KPLER) · TWO TANKERS HIT 21 SEP · ARAGHCHI’S SEVEN-DAY REOPENING PLAN OF 25 SEP REJECTED BY WASHINGTON, PER NBC 28 SEP · POLYMARKET ODDS OF NORMAL TRAFFIC BY 31 DEC 24%

The other gates it loads

What Hormuz turns away lands on the Red Sea and the Cape.
Bab el-Mandeb · RESTRICTEDIMF PORTWATCH, LATEST PUBLISHED DAY 20 SEP
SHIPS ON THE LATEST DAY26
NORMAL, THE PRE-CRISIS MEDIAN34
LOAD76%
DETOUR+12 DAYS
WAR RISKTARGETED
WHO NEEDS ITASIA–EUROPE BOXES · SUEZMAX · BLACK SEA GRAIN TO ASIA

Remarks, as typed: HOUTHIS HOLD PERIM ISLAND AND THE YEMENI RED SEA COAST · SAUDI-LINKED HULLS TARGETED · PORTWATCH COUNT STILL NEAR NORMAL, WHICH IS WHY THE STATUS IS SET BY HAND · NORMAL IS THE FEB 2025–FEB 2026 MEDIAN, A YEAR THAT ALREADY CARRIED THE RED SEA DIVERSION, SO LOAD FLATTERS

Suez Canal · OPENIMF PORTWATCH, LATEST PUBLISHED DAY 20 SEP
SHIPS ON THE LATEST DAY42
NORMAL, THE PRE-CRISIS MEDIAN39
LOAD108%
DETOUR+10-14 DAYS
WAR RISK—
WHO NEEDS ITASIA–EUROPE BOXES · SUEZMAX · BLACK SEA GRAIN TO THE RED SEA AND ASIA

Remarks, as typed: CANAL OPEN AND TOLLS UNCHANGED · TRAFFIC DOWN WITH THE RED SEA · THE DETOUR IS THE CAPE, AND MOST ASIA-EUROPE LOOPS ARE ALREADY ON IT · NORMAL IS THE FEB 2025–FEB 2026 MEDIAN, A YEAR THAT ALREADY CARRIED THE RED SEA DIVERSION, SO LOAD FLATTERS

All seven chokepoints on one board

DARKCON tonight

Tankers going dark is the pattern before a run, a hidden cargo or a hit.
DARKCON2OF 5Shadow Tide
WENT DARK, 24H87OF 246
VS BACKGROUND1.8×

More tankers than usual sailed without lights last night — 1.8 times the rate for other ships in the same water. That is the pattern before a Hormuz run, a hidden cargo, or a hit. How the index is made, and every night on record.

What the markets expect

Polymarket, as the page shipped.
Hormuz traffic back to normal by 31 Dec?24%$13.4M31 DEC
US announces end of the Iranian blockade by 31 Dec?60%$30.3M31 DEC
A commercial ship hit or seized in the Gulf today?31%$33KTODAY 2000Z
Bab el-Mandeb effectively closed by 31 Dec?18%$15.0M31 DEC
East-West pipeline officially restarts by 30 Sep?29%$883K30 SEP
Houthis seize an oil tanker by 31 Oct?27%—31 OCT

Prediction-market prices on Polymarket as the page shipped; the live board reads them again every half hour.

How the flap is set

Four states, never a guess.
OPEN flow within a quarter of normal, no targeting THIN passage safe, flow down by more than a quarter RESTRICTED ships being targeted or admitted selectively CLOSED under a quarter of normal, or shut by an authority NO FEED no bound count; dashes, never a guess

Each chokepoint is a flight. SHIPS is how many crossed on the latest published day, NORMAL the median of the year before Hormuz shut, February 2025 to February 2026, LOAD one against the other. For Suez, Bab el-Mandeb and the Cape that year already carried the Red Sea diversion, so their LOAD reads high and their remarks say so. DETOUR is what avoiding the chokepoint costs in days. WAR RISK is the hull premium as a multiple of the pre-war rate, where one is quoted. The status flap is set by the count; Bab el-Mandeb is set by hand while ships are being hit. Remarks scroll; hover to hold one. WHO NEEDS IT, under each row, is the trades that depend on that gate, so a flap change reads straight into a market. Under that, the last fourteen published days as bars against NORMAL, and the day the flap last changed. The Turkish Straits row reads PortWatch's own Bosporus count directly, its NORMAL the median of the same pre-crisis year the other rows use.

OPEN flow within a quarter of normal, no targeting THIN passage safe, flow down by more than a quarter RESTRICTED ships being targeted or admitted selectively CLOSED under a quarter of normal, or shut by an authority NO FEED no bound count; dashes, never a guess

The log

Gulf and Red Sea events, newest first, each with its source.
28 SEPTCP opens its 185,000 t wheat bids: 13 received, 12 responsive, Bunge lowest at $339.36 CFR Karachi and $340.36 Gwadar, Aston top at $354.83; the 16 Sep award was $348.83, so the C&F fell $9.47/t in twelve days; award pending, grievances to 1800 on 29 SepTCP EVALUATION REPORT, TCP.GOV.PK · DESK PIN
28 SEPKyiv sees no positive sign of a ceasefire covering grain or the Black Sea: every proposal from partners rejected by Moscow, no direct contact, every round of talks tried and none expected to work in the coming months, says agriculture minister Vysotskyi in BrusselsINTERVIEW VIA SINA FINANCE · DESK PIN
28 SEPUkraine asks its partners for stronger export support and an extraordinary FAO session: port strikes put more than 30 million tonnes of this season’s agricultural exports at risk and producer losses above $10bn, with storage, working capital and the 2027–28 plantings under pressureMINISTRY OF AGRARIAN POLICY, AS READ 28 SEP · DESK PIN
28 SEPRussia could restore up to 80% of its Black Sea and Azov grain terminal capacity quickly if the mutual strikes stop; politicians on both sides say a Grain Deal 2.0 is not on the agendaAS REPORTED, READ 28 SEP · DESK PIN
28 SEPUzbekistan took more than 71,000 t of Russian wheat in eight months, sixteen times a year ago, with a record 65,000 t in August: port disruption is pushing Russian exporters to rail and to Central Asia despite Kazakh transit tariffsSTAT.UZ, AS READ 28 SEP · DESK PIN
28 SEPIran finishes laying the 730 km Chabahar–Zahedan line, Afghanistan’s shortest route to the ocean and a port outside Hormuz; operations from early 2027AS REPORTED, READ 28 SEP · DESK PIN
21 SEPSix VLCCs load nearly 12 million barrels at Ras Tanura and Ju’aymah in one day, the busiest at the complex since before the war; four entered the Gulf in ballast 15–17 Sep, and 25 of 26 inbound ballast crude-tanker crossings 12–20 Sep showed no destination. Six dark events at Sohar, Fujairah, Basrah and Ras Tanura preceded the surgeMARINETRAFFIC BY KPLER, SENTINEL-2 IMAGERY · DESK PIN
21 SEPCaspian coaster rates keep climbing on Russian grain to Iran; the Azov market stays shut, with no exit into the Black SeaCOASTER FREIGHT INDEX · DESK PIN

The log on its own page

Transit counts © IMF PortWatch via straits.live; the status, remarks and detours are the desk's. Numbers bound 28 SEP 2026; the typed blocks were last edited 28 SEP 1930Z. The live board refreshes its feeds every half hour while open; this page is rewritten at every bind.