IMO and Oman orchestrate phased reopening of Hormuz

Transits through the Strait of Hormuz are picking up as international efforts intensify to move stranded ships out of the Gulf in a controlled way. Allied Shipbroking said the waterway has "begun to breathe again, but only just" following the memorandum of understanding signed between the US and Iran, with completed transits rising to their highest level since the strait effectively closed on February 28. The recovery, however, remains cautious, politically fragile and heavily managed.

Oman said on Tuesday it had coordinated with the IMO to provide a temporary maritime corridor for vessels seeking to transit Hormuz, with ships required to coordinate with the IMO and follow coordinates issued by the organisation and Omani authorities. The measure is intended to support freedom of navigation in line with international law and without transit fees. The Oman National Hydrographic Office has requested a navigation warning setting out emergency traffic-management measures, stating that the existing traffic separation scheme is unsafe and that two temporary routes — one north and one south of the normal TSS — may be used by departing vessels.

The plan centres on a phased evacuation, with ships divided into designated groups and contacted individually with their allocated transit day. "The safety of navigation remains the paramount consideration," the warning states, noting the elevated collision risk in the current environment. Vessels will be directed to a waiting area in international waters before proceeding, masters are told to keep AIS on during transit and comply with coastal-state instructions via VHF, and Oman warned that traffic may be temporarily suspended for safety or security reasons, including deconfliction with naval vessels.

IMO secretary-general Arsenio Dominguez welcomed the US-Iran agreement as a step towards restoring maritime security after months of attacks on civilian shipping. "We will begin the implementation of the evacuation plan for over 11,000 seafarers still stranded in the region," he said, adding that the operation would be carried out with Iran, Oman, other coastal states, the US and industry. "We have secured the necessary safety guarantees and have thoroughly verified the conditions for safe navigation."

Even so, Allied cautioned that traffic is rising within a "politically time-bound window" rather than under durable peace. Iran has agreed to establish a communication channel to help ensure safe passage and commercial transits have begun to recover from crisis lows, but volumes remain below pre-conflict levels and uncertainty over the strait's long-term governance persists. As Allied put it, the signature on the page has changed the operational picture but not yet transformed the underlying risk architecture.

Insurer Allianz, publishing its annual shipping report, said some $125bn in vessel and cargo value was waiting to pass from the Persian Gulf, with insurers braced for plenty of claims. "This is the first time in history that the Strait of Hormuz has been closed — even in the Iran-Iraq war during the 1980s, the strait remained open. For the future, the closure of the strait will remain as a very real — and not just theoretical — disaster scenario for the shipping industry and insurers," said Captain Rahul Khanna, global head of marine risk consulting at Allianz Commercial.

The report also flagged what it called a potentially profound shift in the global maritime order, arguing that security may be evolving from a collectively guaranteed public good into a transactional service subject to payment — with Iranian officials repeatedly signalling intent to introduce some form of toll once an agreed 60-day pause elapses. Devoting much of this year's edition to chokepoints, Allianz noted that "shipowners and operators confront a convergence of pressures: extreme volatility in bunker fuel prices, persistent congestion at critical ports, and climate-driven disruptions such as droughts constraining key inland waterways," adding that geopolitical tension, trade fragmentation and chokepoint uncertainty have introduced systemic risks into global supply chains. "Taken together, these forces are not cyclical but structural — fundamentally reshaping the industry's operating model and ushering in a new era in which maritime trade is more complex, capital-intensive, and risk-exposed than at any point in recent decades," said Maria Latorre, a sector adviser at Allianz Research.