By Daniel Dunford, senior data journalist
Two days in a row have passed with no ships leaving the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, doubling the total number of days with no outbound traffic since the start of the war in February.
Traffic through the Strait has been down significantly since former supreme leader Ali Khamenei was killed by US airstrikes on 28 February, but there had previously only been two days in which no ships at all had travelled eastwards towards the Arabian Sea and global shipping routes.
The most recent previous occurrence was 18 March, more than six months ago.
Before the war, an average of 52 ships exited the Gulf through the strait per day.
That has fallen to fewer than 10 per day on average through most of the war. It was back up to 25 per day during a five-week period between June and July in which the US and Iran were taking active steps to end the conflict.
But data for last week shows that only five ships left on Tuesday, followed by none on either Wednesday or Thursday, the most recent date for which we have shipping data.
Those days were also the first time since the start of the war that no crude oil tankers had travelled in either direction through the strait for two consecutive days.
There had been 12 previous occasions with no crude oil traffic, but never for more than one day at a time. The most recent occasion was more than four months ago in June.
In total, 33 crude oil tankers have passed through the waterway in the week to 8 October. That is the lowest weekly total in two months and down more than 75% on the pre-war average of more than 140 per week.
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