Lost Mines Hinder Iran's Compliance With Trump's Waterway Shipping Demands

Two days after a U.S.-Iran ceasefire took effect on April 8 with the explicit condition that Iran unblock the Strait of Hormuz, shipping traffic through the world's most critical energy chokepoint remained at a near-total standstill. The central obstacle, according to Iran, was mines: not a refusal to comply, but an inability to guarantee safe passage through waters the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said were laced with uncharted ordnance.

Iran's IRGC released a statement announcing alternative maritime routes through the strait, citing precautions against what it called "possible collisions with sea mines." The suggested navigation paths required ships entering from the Sea of Oman to head north of Larak Island into the Gulf, while exiting vessels were directed to pass south of the island before returning to the Sea of Oman. That rerouting, framed as a safety measure, effectively preserved Iranian control over which ships moved and when.

The mine explanation immediately ran into a credibility wall in Washington. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a press briefing that "the strait is open," while Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine said, "I believe so, based on the diplomatic negotiation." Trump, less diplomatic, posted on Truth Social that "Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz."

Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, delivered the starkest summary: "The Strait of Hormuz is not open. Access is being restricted, conditioned and controlled." Al Jaber noted that 230 loaded oil tankers remained waiting inside the Gulf.

The shipping data confirmed the assessment. Just five bulk carriers had transited the waterway in the first 24 hours of the ceasefire, according to MarineTraffic and Kpler, while S&P Global Market Intelligence counted nine vessels passing through across the first two days combined. Under normal conditions, roughly 135 vessels traverse the strait every day.

The mine question sits at the heart of what maritime analyst C. Uday Bhaskar described as the core calculation for any shipowner. "If I were the owner of a VLCC which weighs about 300,000 tonnes, whose value could be a quarter billion dollars…I would believe the Iranians if they said we have laid mines," Bhaskar told Al Jazeera. One shipping executive with vessels stranded in the Persian Gulf told CNBC: "We have no information about how we could transit the Strait of Hormuz during the ceasefire."

That uncertainty has driven insurance costs to levels that make many voyages financially untenable. The cost of war risk coverage leaped to about 5% of a ship's value, roughly five times the rate seen in the earliest days of the Iran conflict. Insuring a $100 million oil tanker now costs approximately $5 million for a single transit. Shipping giant Hapag-Lloyd implemented a War Risk Surcharge of up to $3,500 per container as of March 2.

Those costs flow directly into energy markets. Dubai crude oil prices reached $166 per barrel on March 19, their highest on record, and Brent crude stood at $114 per barrel in late March. In the second week of March, California's gasoline prices exceeded $5 per gallon.

The strait carries roughly 20% of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas. Whether Iran's mine problem is a genuine demining challenge or a mechanism for maintaining leverage over transit, the practical effect is the same: a ceasefire on paper has not translated into commerce in practice, and the cost of that gap is being paid at gas stations and refineries far from the Persian Gulf.