Ships Go Dark in Strait of Hormuz as Maritime Risk Escalates

Shipping costs, insurance rates and fuel prices are now being shaped by a narrow waterway where vessels are deliberately disappearing from the map. In the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important oil chokepoints, ships are moving without broadcasting the identity, position and speed data that normally keeps crowded seas safer, raising the odds of miscalculation for crews, naval forces and the markets that depend on uninterrupted flow.

The chokepoint itself leaves little room for error. The International Energy Agency says the strait is only 29 nautical miles wide at its narrowest point, with two 2-mile-wide navigable channels and a 2-mile buffer zone. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said oil flow through Hormuz averaged 20 million barrels per day in 2024, about 20 percent of global petroleum liquids consumption, and the IEA says the average was 20 million barrels per day in 2025 as well. That volume moves through a corridor where one wrong turn, one spoofed signal or one missed warning can ripple outward into tanker rates, refinery costs and ultimately the price of fuel far beyond the Gulf.

The risk has pushed the International Maritime Organization to call for a provisional, urgent safe maritime framework to help evacuate merchant ships confined within the Gulf region after its Council condemned attacks and threats against commercial shipping in March. United Nations maritime officials have urged vessels to exercise maximum caution as claims and counterclaims over strikes and confrontations continue to swirl around the strait. The human toll is also real: roughly 20,000 seafarers have been stranded or confined by the disruption, their routes narrowed by fear as much as by geography.

The picture on the water has grown darker. Windward reported that on May 11, 18 vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz, and six crossed dark. The firm also said about 470 vessels were affected by GPS jamming near Fujairah within 24 hours, and 146 commercial-size vessels were operating dark near Hormuz in synthetic aperture radar imagery from May 5. Reuters-linked reporting said most ships in and around the strait were not using AIS, the automatic identification system that broadcasts a vessel’s identity, location and speed. Maritime analysts warn that AIS data may be missing half the picture when ships go dark, spoof GPS, broadcast false identities or duplicate codes from scrapped vessels.

Military escorts are now part of the response. U.S. military reporting said Project Freedom began with the safe passage of two U.S.-flagged commercial vessels. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said vessels transiting the strait have access to a secure lane, while U.S. Naval Forces Central Command warned about mines in the strait. But even that effort has drawn uncertainty. The New York Times reported a dispute between U.S. Central Command and a ship owner over whether a vessel had coordinated safe passage with the military. In a corridor this tight, that kind of confusion is not just bureaucratic. It is a market risk, a labor risk and a safety risk with global consequences.