Strait of Hormuz security tracker

What is happening in the Strait of Hormuz?

Strait of Hormuz security: shipping and Gulf energy risk, key actors, a sourced timeline, what to watch, and monthly conflict data for Iran, Iraq and the Gulf.

This tracker uses a fixed eight-country boundary around the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. It provides country-level humanitarian conflict context; tanker traffic, maritime warnings and vessel disruptions remain separate live signals on the chokepoint pages and dashboard.

Shipping status: is the Strait of Hormuz open? Live disruption score and IMF PortWatch daily transits.

Maintained month snapshot

This page records the committed 2026-10-01 HAPI/HDX country summaries published November 2, 2026. JavaScript can refresh newer values; the numbers above remain available without it.

Source: SUZU Monitor weekly pulse snapshot, November 2, 2026. Combined totals are withheld when covered countries report different reference months.

Background

The Strait of Hormuz carried about 20 million barrels of oil a day in 2024, roughly a fifth of global petroleum liquids consumption, and around one-fifth of global LNG trade, according to the US Energy Information Administration; Saudi Arabia accounted for 38 percent of crude flows, and EIA estimated only about 2.6 million b/d of Saudi and UAE pipeline capacity could bypass the strait. Every Gulf Cooperation Council state hosts US forces, including Al Udeid in Qatar, the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, and US troops are also based near Baghdad and in Erbil. Sources: EIA, Al Jazeera (1, 2).

After the US-Israeli strikes on Iran of 28 February 2026, an IRGC adviser declared the strait 'closed' on 2 March and threatened to set ships ablaze. Within a week the IMO had listed nine attacks on ships and seven seafarers killed, and drones hit Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura refinery, Qatar's Ras Laffan LNG complex, Abu Dhabi's Mussafah terminal and Oman's Duqm port, which Iranian officials denied targeting. Iranian missiles struck Ras Laffan again on 18 March; QatarEnergy said repairs would sideline 12.8 million tonnes of LNG a year for three to five years, and EIA estimated Gulf producers shut in 7.5 million b/d of crude in March. Sources: Al Jazeera (1, 2, 3, 4), France 24, EIA.

An April ceasefire, a US blockade of Iranian ports from 13 April and a 17 June memorandum that was to reopen the strait did not restore traffic: Al Jazeera reported about five transits a day from mid-July to late August against more than 100 before the war. Attacks surged in October. UKMTO logged 15 between 6 and 14 October, the container ship GFS Pride sank after what the US military called an IRGC projectile strike, and on 22 October the IRGC claimed seven tankers hit in one day, which CENTCOM disputed. Qatar's deputy prime minister warned on 19 October that the energy shock had not yet peaked. Sources: Al Jazeera (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).

Key actors

• Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) naval forces — Iran's force in the strait; it says the waterway 'remains unsafe for vessels which do not coordinate with Iran's Persian Gulf Strait Authority'. (Al Jazeera)
• US Central Command (CENTCOM) — Runs the blockade of Iranian ports and tanker escorts; commander Brad Cooper says the strait 'is controlled by the United States and our regional partners, not Iran'. (Al Jazeera)
• Qatar and QatarEnergy — LNG exporter whose Ras Laffan complex was damaged by Iranian strikes in March 2026; Doha says a new regional defence partnership prioritising air defence is imminent. (Al Jazeera)
• Oman — Co-littoral state negotiating with Iran on managing the strait; Iran and Oman issued shipping routes that conflicted with the US-backed route, and ships using the US route were targeted. (Al Jazeera)
• Saudi Arabia — Largest shipper of crude through Hormuz; after missiles were fired at Riyadh in March 2026, its foreign minister said it reserves 'the right to take military actions if deemed necessary'. (Al Jazeera)

Timeline

1. March 2, 2026 — IRGC adviser Ebrahim Jabari declared the strait 'closed' and threatened to set transiting ships ablaze; Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura refinery came under drone attack. (Al Jazeera)
2. March 18, 2026 — Iranian missiles struck Qatar's Ras Laffan Industrial City, causing what Qatar called 'significant damage'; Qatar expelled Iran's military and security attaches. (Al Jazeera)
3. April 13, 2026 — The US announced a blockade of Iranian ports after Islamabad talks collapsed; Iran reopened the strait for a few hours on 17 April, then closed it again on 18 April. (Al Jazeera)
4. June 17, 2026 — The Islamabad memorandum committed Iran to gradually reopen the strait and the US to end its blockade; Iran said it would manage the strait with Oman and 'charge fees for services'. (Al Jazeera)
5. June 28, 2026 — The IRGC fired missiles and drones at Ali Al Salem air base in Kuwait and the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain after US strikes on 10 Iranian targets near the strait. (Al Jazeera)
6. July 8, 2026 — IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez condemned two days of attacks on transiting ships and urged flag states and shipowners to avoid the strait, citing nearly 6,000 stranded seafarers. (IMO)
7. September 9, 2026 — CENTCOM sank five Iranian tankers after saying the IRGC targeted a US warship; Iran said it hit 10 ships, a seafarer died on the Hercules Star off Dubai, and Brent passed $100. (France 24)
8. October 22, 2026 — The IRGC claimed seven tankers struck in one day, the most since the war began, and warned it could hit US bases; CENTCOM said 95 percent of vessels were getting through. (Al Jazeera)

What to watch

• Daily transits through the strait. Al Jazeera reported about five transits a day in July-August against more than 100 pre-war; the count is the most direct measure of whether the strait is open. Tracked in the Strait of Hormuz Tracker panel on the live dashboard.
• Tankers waiting or going dark in the Gulf of Oman. Iran's navy has warned ships not to switch off transponders and the IRGC targets vessels on 'unauthorised' routes; bunching and AIS gaps have preceded attack waves. Tracked in the Live Tanker Positions map layer on the live dashboard.
• Outages at Gulf energy sites. Ras Tanura, Ras Laffan, Mussafah and Duqm were all hit in March 2026; a new onshore outage would show the campaign widening again from ships to export infrastructure. Tracked in the Energy Disruptions Log panel on the live dashboard.
• Attacks on US bases in Gulf states. The IRGC struck Ali Al Salem and the Fifth Fleet base in June and on 22 October threatened US bases if escorts continue; a hit would draw host states further in. Tracked in the Middle East Strikes map layer on the live dashboard.

Background, actors, timeline and watch list last reviewed October 24, 2026 against the linked sources. They are context for the monthly figures above, not part of the HAPI/HDX dataset.

Country readings

5 of the 8 covered countries have a Country Instability Index reading. The highest is Iran at 86 (Critical), and the lowest is Qatar at 50 (Normal). Instability is a live 0-100 stress score; resilience is a structural 0-100 index ranked across countries. Both describe each country as a whole, not this crisis alone, and a country without a reading reflects index coverage, not a statement about risk.

Sources: Country Instability Index published pulse and the country resilience index snapshot used on each country page.

Coverage boundary

Iran (IR), Iraq (IQ), Saudi Arabia (SA), Qatar (QA), Kuwait (KW), United Arab Emirates (AE), Oman (OM), Bahrain (BH). Events outside this list are not included in the live totals on this page.

Related reading

• Hormuz Trade Tracker

How to read this tracker

Use these monthly country summaries as a bounded pulse, then inspect the dashboard for event-level context, map layers, and other independent signals. The figures are not forecasts and should not be interpreted as a complete casualty or incident ledger. SUZU Monitor's forecasts are graded separately, and that record is published on the forecast accuracy scorecard.

Questions about the Hormuz and Gulf security

Download: tracker.json. Scope source: SUZU Monitor crisis registry. Maintained metrics: HAPI/HDX humanitarian conflict summaries from the UN OCHA Humanitarian API.

How SUZU Monitor compares: SUZU Monitor vs Liveuamap · SUZU Monitor vs Deep State Map.