Strait of Hormuz now totally blocked with US stopping 14 Iran-tied tankers and hundreds of others too scared to cross

It’s an international game of chicken.At one end of the Strait of Hormuz Iran is threatened to attack any ship that crossed without its permission.At the other, a US blockade is halting the few remaining ships that were making it through — all of which were tied to Iran’s shadow fleet.The result is that traffic at the critical choke point — which carries 20% of the world’s oil — is at a standstill.Only four ships appear to have successfully crossed the Strait of Hormuz in the four days since the blockade came into effect — according to maritime trackers — all of which were entering the Persian Gulf, rather than exiting with Tehran’s oil exports.But about 800 vessels remain stuck in the Gulf, according to the UK-based Lloyd’s List, leaving 20,000 seafarers in limbo.Prior to the war, more than 130 ships traveled through the strait every day but traffic fell to only a handful of vessels after the conflict broke out, the majority of which were linked to Iran.The blockade put an end to that, with 14 vessels forced to turn back due to their links with Iranian exports within the first 72 hours, according to US Central Command.

Only a single ship was caught exiting the strait on Thursday, but it remained to be seen if the vessel, the Comoros-flagged Race tanker, will make it to its final destination in India or if it will be intercepted and forced to turn back by US warships in the Gulf of Oman.While traffic out of the oil-rich Persian Gulf has appeared to drop to zero, tracking data indicates that at least four ships have managed to enter the Persian Gulf after the blockade went into effect on Monday morning.The Iranian-flagged Neshat cargo ship, which came from western Africa, was the latest ship found to have entered the Gulf, with the vessel docking in the Bandar Abbas port just past the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday.

It followed trips from the Comoros-flagged Zaynar 2 sanctioned container that made it to the same port on Wednesday and the empty R...