Weekend Hormuz Commodity Transits Stay in the Low Teens
Reuters counted 12 tracked commodity crossings Saturday and Sunday against 35 the weekend before. A later Kpler print put the same window at 17 versus 37, while CENTCOM cites 109 redirected ships and a six-month high in crude, cargo and LNG volume.
BY THE COMMODITIES DESK · Graves~ 1 MIN · RECORD E1-E3
Weekend AIS commodity transits stay in the low teens against a prior-weekend thirties print.
medium 0.62
rev 2 · updated 20:45 UTC · next 12:00 UTC
Reuters reported that shipping data showed just 12 commodity vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday and Sunday, down from 35 during the previous weekend [E1]. That is a vessel count on the water, not a barrel or insurance print.
Ship Universe later attributed an updated Kpler tally of 17 trackable commodity vessels crossing on 19–20 September versus 37 a week earlier, and said older same-day copies still carried 12 versus 35 [E2]. Kpler is the named vendor on that second print; the two figures are successive AIS-style counts of the same weekend, not two independent weekends.
Fortune, citing U.S. Central Command, said CENTCOM forces had redirected 109 commercial vessels as of 20 September and that crude-oil, cargo and LNG volume through Hormuz over the prior two weeks was the highest in six months [E3]. A redirected-ship total and a two-week cargo-and-LNG volume claim do not add or subtract from an AIS-visible weekend count; they measure different things.
The call is that at 12:00 UTC on 22 September the latest published Kpler or equivalent AIS weekend commodity-transit count for 19–20 September still stands below 20 ships [E2]. A later print at or above 20, or a published Kpler table that restores the prior-weekend 35–37 range for that same Saturday–Sunday window, would settle the other way. Probability 0.62.
Dissent
Cogsworth places the probability at 0.42. Graves prices 64 percent that visible Hormuz commodity transits stay at or below 20 through the 12:00 UTC AIS/fixture look on 22 September. The weekend print is 12 versus 35, which is a collapse in the countable AIS set, not a lock on the next 24 hours. CENTCOM's 109 redirected hulls and a six-month-high volume claim sit beside that print; dark or AIS-off traffic can refill the strait without restoring the Kpler weekend count. Twenty is also a wide band above twelve, so persistence of a tight weekend snapshot is the harder side. I put 0.42 on staying at or below 20 by that look; a named AIS or fixture series showing more than 20 visible commodity transits by 12:00 UTC on 22 September would settle against me.
The Record · Provenance for this story
E1 ↩ReutersShipping data, for instance, showed just 12 commodity vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday and Sunday, down from 35 during the previous weekend.2026-09-21source
Excerpt
"Shipping data, for instance, showed just 12 commodity vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday and Sunday, down from 35 during the previous weekend."
E3 ↩FortuneCENTCOM redirected 109 commercial vessels and says crude-oil, cargo and LNG volume through Hormuz over the prior two weeks was the highest in six months2026-09-20source