The US and Iran are set to sign an interim peace deal at the end of the week which will include an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, possibly within thirty days, and will start the clock on a sixty-day window to arrive at a final deal. As the sides haven’t released the text of the agreement, there is significant uncertainty around the Memorandum of Understanding’s details and timeline for the reopening. The war’s broadest impact on freight markets has been via upward pressure on fuel prices. The reopening could mean some near term easing of fuel costs for carriers. President Trump asserts that the Strait will be fully open by the time of the signing, but even if both blockades are lifted then, the consensus is that a full return of traffic will likely take months as the narrow passage is further narrowed by Iranian mines. It will take time to de-mine the waterway, with some countries who have committed to the de-mining process hesitant to join the effort until a final peace deal is in place, meaning ships will have to rely on the few established safe lanes in the interim. Experts estimate it will take several weeks for daily transits to recover to half of the pre-war norm, and much longer, possibly six months, for oil flows to normalize. In addition to out of place tankers and damage to infrastructure, even once vessels exit, it takes about seven weeks for crude to arrive in the Far East, with an even longer timeline for availability of refined products like bunker and jet fuel first dependent on those crude shipments arriving. The fact that many countries will seek to prioritize replenishing strategic reserves could likewise mean a commercial supply rebound will take time and that downward pressure on oil prices and on fuel costs will be gradual. For the container market, near-term easing fuel costs would reduce some of the upward pressure on rates that have kept prices higher year on year since the start of the war. But while reduced Emergency Fuel Surchar