Iran is still moving crude through Hormuz even as attacks, suspended sailings and higher risk costs squeeze the wider Gulf market.
Iran oil exports kept moving through the Strait of Hormuz as of March 12, 2026, even while shipping disruptions across the Gulf choked neighboring producers and sent oil prices sharply higher. The contrast reflects Tehran’s reliance on sanctioned shipping networks, Asia-centered buyers and years of logistical preparation that have made its trade more resilient than the conventional Gulf export system.
Why Iran oil exports are still moving
A Reuters tanker-tracking review found that Iran continued shipping crude at roughly 1.1 million to 1.5 million barrels a day after the Feb. 28 attacks, depending on the tracker used. That is below the 2.17 million barrels a day Iran reached in February before the strikes, but still close enough to last year’s sanctioned trading range to show that exports have not been shut down.
Iran’s trade is different from the rest of the Gulf. Large tankers are still loading at Kharg Island, and Tehran depends far less on mainstream shipowners and Western-facing trading houses. Its crude also has a concentrated customer base in Asia, especially China, which makes those barrels harder to choke off quickly unless Washington moves from sanctions pressure to direct interdiction at sea.
Gulf shipping is seizing up around them
The wider market is moving in the opposite direction. Reports of suspended shipments from tanker owners, oil majors and traders began almost immediately after the fighting escalated, and the latest vessel attacks pushed commercial traffic even closer to a standstill, with at least 16 ships hit in the region since the war began. The result is a split market: Iranian cargoes still finding a way through, and non-Iranian cargoes stacking up behind security warnings, crew fears and higher freight bills.
The chokepoint itself leaves little room for error. An EIA analysis of the Strait of Hormuz says the waterway carried about 20 million barrels a day in 2024, more than one-quarter of global seaborne oil trade and about one-fifth of global oil and petroleum liquids consumption. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have some pipeline capacity that can bypass Hormuz, but the EIA estimates only about 2.6 million barrels a day of spare bypass capacity, far too little to replace most of the crude that normally leaves the Gulf by tanker.
Risk pricing is now part of the disruption. Reuters reported on the war-risk insurance response that at least 40 vessels had still transited the strait since March 1, but about 1,000 ships remained in Gulf waters, roughly half of them oil and gas tankers, with an aggregate hull value above $25 billion. Even where insurance is still available, higher premiums and the lack of routine naval escorts are slowing decisions across the mainstream market.
The longer history behind Iran oil exports
This resilience did not appear overnight. Reuters reported in 2019 that Iran was building the Goreh-Jask pipeline and a terminal outside the Gulf as part of a strategy to reduce dependence on Hormuz. Reuters also reported in 2023 that Iranian exports had climbed to five-year highs despite U.S. sanctions, showing that the recovery in illicit and semi-licit trade was already well underway. By mid-2025, Reuters reported that Iran had moved floating storage closer to China, effectively putting millions of barrels nearer to end buyers before another regional shock hit.
That backdrop explains why Tehran can be both the main military threat to the waterway and one of the few exporters still managing to move meaningful crude through it. Iran’s system is less efficient, less transparent and more politically risky than normal Gulf trade, but it was built for disruption in a way the regular market was not.
What to watch next for Iran oil exports
The next question is whether the crisis stays concentrated in commercial shipping or shifts directly onto Iran’s export lifeline. If U.S. or Israeli action starts targeting Iran-linked tankers or materially interrupts loadings at Kharg Island, the relative advantage Tehran holds today could disappear quickly. Until then, Iran oil exports remain one of the clearest signs that the Hormuz crisis is not freezing all barrels equally.
