Iran has reportedly sent more than 11mn barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz since the war began, all bound for China, CNBC reported on March 11, citing shipping data.

Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains mostly suspended, but vessel-tracking data shows a slight uptick in Iran- and China-linked traffic, including two sanctioned VLCCs fully loaded with crude.

Eight commercial transits were recorded on March 10, with four more the next day. But sailing in or near the Straits remains perilous as three more ships were struck on March 11, bringing the number of reported strikes on oil tankers to 17 as of the eleventh day of the war.

As bne IntelliNews reported, flows of tankers through the straits have slowed to a trickle, but a few ships – Greek and Chinese owned – have passed through since the IRGC closed the straits on March 2. Pre-war over 100 ships a day would traverse the narrow waterway.

While most of the world’s tankers float idly by, Iran has resumed exports using its own shadow fleet. Iran is exporting roughly 1.7–1.9mn barrels of oil per day (b/d) through the Strait of Hormuz, slightly higher than its export levels before the current conflict, according to details reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Since the start of the conflict on February 28, a total of 13.7mn barrels of Iranian oil have passed the strait, though many ships avoid AIS tracking, making full monitoring difficult according to reports.

Iran is exporting more oil through the Strait of Hormuz than before the war, showing it is in control of a strategic waterway that it has closed off to the rest of the region’s oil producers, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The bulk of the oil is bound for China which has been in back-channel talks to resume its oil trade with Iran under a commercial deal that bypasses the need to do a US-led security or ceasefire deal.

Hormuz bottleneck remains

US President Donald Trump boasted that he would reopen traffic by providing a naval escort. However, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US navy has been getting daily requests for US naval protection from shipping companies on a daily basis since the conflict began and has been turning them all down as it considers the passage through the straits too dangerous.

Trump also claimed that the Persian navy has been destroyed. However, the IRGC released a video showing underground naval tunnels packed with fast-attack boats, anti-ship missiles, and naval mines. Iran also has an extensive fleet of submarines including three advanced Russian-made Kilo class submarines none of which have been reportedly damaged so far.

The continued flow of Iranian oil underscores Tehran’s de facto control of the flow of traffic through the Straits and represents a strategic defeat for the US, which admits it has underestimated Iran’s naval and missile power.

The Iranian Head of the National Security Council, Ali Larijani, called Trump out in defiant televised remarks, saying that Iran would send oil prices up to $200 in defiance of the US assault.

“Tonight we received messages from the US president, through the Omani mediator, requesting that we negotiate a ceasefire. Our response is that we will not accept any negotiations as long as an entity called Israel exists. Not a single litre of oil will pass through the Strait of Hormuz if it benefits the US, Israel and their allies. Prepare for $200 per barrel.”

Towards the end of the Iran–Iraq War in the 1980s, the US escorted several hundred tankers, two at a time every few days, through the straits during the so-called “tanker war” phase of that conflict in what was called Operation Earnest Will. After Iranian attacks on Kuwaiti tankers, Kuwait asked outside powers for protection, and the United States agreed to escort ships.

However, if Operation Earnest Will were reactivated, a rate of two tankers sailing through the straits a day would make little difference to the flow of oil onto the international markets. Pre-war 20mn barrels a day was leaving the Gulf for customers around the world.

China has emerged as a key ally for Tehran. While speculation is rife that Russia is providing military and intelligence to Tehran, little proof has been presented so far. However, China is openly providing Iran with high quality satellite intelligence which has allowed the IRGC to accurately target key US military assets in the region, including four impossible-to-replace THAAD radar stations. Iran has also dumped reliance on the US GPS satellite network to guide drones and missiles and switched to China’s BeiDou satellite navigation system has neutered Israeli electronic warfare advantages by making drones and missiles harder to jam and more accurate.

Iran mines the Straits

Separately, Iran has begun laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, two US intelligence sources told CBS News on March 10. Iran is deploying mines using small crafts carrying 2 to 3 mines each. CNN separately confirmed the same intelligence.

As bne IntelliNews reported last year, Iran has built up a significant stockpile of naval mines that it can use to pepper the Straits and make them impassable. Moreover, it also has a fleet of submarines to deploy them largely undetected. For its part, despite the sophisticated radar and early warning equipment on US warships, they cannot detect Iran mines floating just three meters below sea level. The US does not have extensive mine clearing equipment in the Gulf and local Arab allies have a total of five mine clearing ships between them.

Iran has an estimated mine stockpile of between 2,000 to 6,000 naval mines — Iranian, Chinese and Russian-made variants.

US forces have managed to destroy 16 Iranian minelaying vessels near the Strait on March 10, confirmed in a video posted by CENTCOM on X.

"If Iran has put out any mines in the Hormuz Strait, and we have no reports of them doing so, we want them removed, IMMEDIATELY!" Trump said in a social media post. "If for any reason mines were placed, and they are not removed forthwith, the Military consequences to Iran will be at a level never seen before."

Col. Ali Razmjou, spokesperson for Khatam al-Anbiya, the joint command headquarters that controls all of Iran’s armed forces, said in a statement any tanker bound for western allies nations is now a “legitimate target.” In the same statement, Khatam al-Anbiya announced that Tehran’s policy of “reciprocal hits,” the tit-for-tat cycle where Iran responded proportionally to each American or Israeli strike, has ended.