In Charts: How The Iran Conflict is Disrupting Global Trade
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz and airspace across the Gulf has rippled through the global economy, pushing up oil and fertilizer prices.
Photographer: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images
In the evening of March 1, an oil tanker turned off its transponder about 25 kilometers (15 miles) east of the emirate of Sharjah and disappeared into the murk of jammed signals over the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow chokepoint that separates the Persian Gulf from the open ocean. Ten hours later, its transponder winked back into life due north of Abu Dhabi, heading for Bahrain.
Only a handful of ships have made the run through the straits since last Saturday, when the US and Israel launched an air assault against Iran. Tehran retaliated, firing drones and missiles at targets across the Gulf. A Bloomberg analysis of shipping data from March 1-March 6 shows that traffic of merchant ships around the Strait of Hormuz has dropped more than 85% compared to the same period last year; about a fifth of these transits appear be under automatic identification system blackouts.