The Strait of Hormuz will ultimately reopen but Iran and Oman will set new conditions for passage, including transit fees, Kazem Jalali, Iran’s Ambassador to Russia, told Russian daily Izvestia in an interview on Monday.
“Of course, this strait will be open, but with new conditions to be determined by the Iranian and Omani authorities,” Reuters quoted Jalali as telling the Russian newspaper.
“We understand that Iran and Oman provide certain services related to this strait. And fees will be charged for those services,” the ambassador said, without giving further details.
Last week, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, said that the Omani Ambassador to the U.S. assured him that “there are no plans for tolling the Strait.”
Putting transit fees on passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz is a “non-starter,” Bessent told the Omani envoy.
In indirect negotiations with the United States about an end to the war, Iran is reportedly demanding that a deal should contain provisions that Tehran can ask for transit fees from vessels willing to move through the chokepoint.
Since the war began on February 28, tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has collapsed by 90% to 95% compared to pre-war levels, leaving the market about 13 million barrels per day (bpd) short of crude and fuel supply that was previously freely flowing to buyers.
Some oil cargoes continue to trickle through the critical chokepoint, but under increasingly opaque operating conditions, complicating the tracking of oil and gas flows and obscuring the visibility of how much energy supply actually reaches buyers these days.
More vessels are leaving the region after passing the Strait of Hormuz in a dark mode with transponders switched off, and those entering the Persian Gulf to load cargoes are increasingly doing the same.
The dark-mode tactics, once the feature of Iran-linked vessels aiming to skirt sanctions, are now the norm for the majority of commercial traffic at the Strait of Hormuz, energy flow-tracking firms say.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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