The Strait After the Ceasefire. Seven Weeks of Data from the Gulf’s Only Maritime Exit in International Shipping News 25/04/2026 AXSMarine AIS-derived crossing data, collected continuously from 1 March through 21 April 2026, documents how the Strait of Hormuz has functioned – and who has been willing to use it – in the weeks since the conflict began. From Stillness to Structure When we published When the Gulf Went Still in early April, the defining feature of the Strait of Hormuz was absence. Crossings had collapsed to near zero in the first days of March. The 353 dry bulk and multipurpose vessels confirmed inside the Gulf by 5 March had nowhere to go. Seven weeks of continuous AIS tracking later, traffic has not recovered in any meaningful sense. What has emerged instead is a stratified corridor: thin, defined less by commercial logic than by risk tolerance, flag of convenience, and proximity to the sanctioned fleet. Across the full post-conflict period from 1 March to 21 April, AXSMarine recorded 446 confirmed crossings across dry bulk, tanker, gas carrier and container ship segments – an average of 8.6 per day, against a pre-conflict baseline of 115.7. That figure masks significant phase-to-phase variation, from a low of 6.6/day in March to a brief peak of 28 crossings on a single extraordinary day in late April. March: The Residual Fleet The first operators to move in March were Greek Panamax owners under acute commercial pressure – vessels that had completed discharge cycles and needed to exit. GEORGIA T, MINOAN SKY, STAR GWYNETH and MINOAN DIGNITY all crossed outbound between 13 and 16 March, followed by Chinese-operated Panamaxes including BAILIAN STAR and BROAD RICH. The common thread was size and cargo type: 70–85k DWT bulk carriers that had been working grain and fertilizer trades and were furthest behind on their next fixture. These were not operators scheduling new fixtures through Hormuz – they were completing existing ones and exiting. In the tanker segment, the structural signature of a disrupted corridor was already visible. Of the 67 tanker crossings recorded in March, 39 – fully 58% – involved vessels with sanctioned, ghost fleet or opaque ownership profiles. Western-flagged transparent operators accounted for just 21% of March tanker movements. Sanctioned-adjacent and opaque fleets – sanctioned and ghost fleet – were maintaining the thin thread of crude and product flows that conventional operators had abandoned. Gas carrier traffic was comparatively thin: 21 crossings against a February baseline of 12.6/day. The most notable development was the emergence of Indian-flagged LPG carriers – BW ELM, BW TYR, PINE GAS, JAG VASANT and SHIVALIK – operating under the diplomatic exemption Iran announced covering India, China, Russia and Pakistan. Their sustained presence, against a backdrop of sanctioned-fleet dominance elsewhere in the segment, reflects a fleet operating under a different risk and legal framework from the rest of the market. Container ships recorded the most complete withdrawal of any segment. Of 27 March crossings, half involved Iranian-flagged or Iran-owned vessels on domestic routes. The only Western liner operator to move was Maersk’s ASTRID MAERSK (190,567 DWT) on 1 March – the last day before the commercial withdrawal became total. The two COSCO giants CSCL INDIAN OCEAN and CSCL ARCTIC OCEAN (both 184,320 DWT) crossed on 30 March; no comparable vessels followed. April: A Corridor, Not a Recovery The ceas