Oil and LNG Tankers Depart Strait of Hormuz After 3-Month Blockade

Tankers carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG) and a supertanker laden with Iraqi crude oil have departed the Strait of Hormuz, heading for Pakistan and China, following nearly three months of forced idleness. This information was reported by Reuters, citing data from vessel tracking firms LSEG and Kpler.

Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which typically handles about a fifth of the world's oil and LNG supplies, was restricted due to the American-Israeli war against Iran, which began on February 28.

Specifically, the LNG tanker «Fuwairit», flying the flag of the Bahamas, transited the Strait of Hormuz on Monday. The vessel, loaded at Qatar's Ras Laffan port in late March, is expected to unload in Pakistan on May 26. Another gas carrier, «Al Rayyan», also successfully exited the strait and is en route to China, where it is scheduled to dock in late June.

The oil supertanker «Eagle Verona» departed the strait on Saturday and is expected to arrive at Ningbo port in eastern China on June 12. The Singapore-flagged vessel is chartered by Unipec, the trading arm of Asia's largest refiner, Sinopec. The tanker loaded approximately 2 million barrels of Iraqi Basrah crude oil on February 26. The «Eagle Verona» was one of seven vessels for which Malaysia had sought transit permission from Iran. Since then, five of these vessels have left the waterway, while two remain in the Persian Gulf. Last week, three very large crude carriers (VLCCs) also left the Persian Gulf, bound for China and South Korea with 6 million barrels of crude oil.

Prior to the war, shipping traffic through the strait averaged between 125 and 140 vessel transits per day. Currently, about 20,000 seafarers remain stranded in the Persian Gulf aboard hundreds of vessels.