The physical numbers are not subtle. Traffic through the Strait, which carried roughly a fifth of the world's seaborne oil and LNG before the war began in late February, has collapsed from more than 100 vessels a day to fewer than five, according to shipping-tracking data cited by Al Jazeera and UNCTAD. Crude exports out of the Gulf are down nearly half from pre-war levels, from about 17 million barrels a day to roughly 9 million, with Reuters-cited analysts estimating five to seven million barrels a day of Gulf oil currently disrupted in some form.
The International Energy Agency's own monthly reports back this up with inventory data rather than headlines. Global observed oil stocks have fallen by more than 400 million barrels since the war started, a drawdown averaging 2.7 million barrels a day, and the agency's August report noted stocks fell another 69 million barrels in July alone even as the pace of emergency releases slowed. Around the same time, OPEC+ spare capacity, the buffer that normally absorbs exactly this kind of shock, hit a historic low precisely because so much Gulf capacity sits behind a Strait that ships won't cross.
That's the structuralist case in a sentence: this isn't a headline risk that traders are pricing on vibes. It's a market that has genuinely lost barrels, drawn down real inventory, and burned through its safety margin, and none of that resets itself just because two sides sit down to talk.