When the Gulf Went Still
- 7 hours ago
- 3 min read
Оn 28 February 2026, the Persian Gulf was running a normal book of business. Panamaxes were completing grain discharges at Bandar Imam Khomeini. Supramaxes were working fertilizer parcels. Handysizers were loading industrial minerals for Southeast Asian ports. Then the United States and Israel launched coordinated strikes on Iran — including the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — and within seventy-two hours, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had formally declared the Strait of Hormuz closed. Only four vessels had crossed in either direction. The month that followed was unlike anything the dry bulk market had seen.
Iran's IRGC transmitted warnings via VHF radio to vessels in the Strait, stating that no ship was permitted to pass. By 4 March, IRGC officials claimed "complete control" of the waterway. The self-imposed closure that followed was not the result of physical obstruction alone — it was the result of commercial operators making a rational calculation that the risk of transit outweighed any freight premium. This review draws on AXSMarine's AIS-derived tracking data, collected continuously throughout March, to document what that calculation meant for the dry bulk fleet: how many vessels were trapped, what cargoes they were carrying, how the flow of transits evolved, and what the data tells us about a market that never fully stopped — but came closer to it than at any point in recent memory.
The Freeze
In early March, AXSMarine had identified 353 dry bulk and multipurpose vessels inside the Gulf — 236 bulk carriers and 117 MPPs. Of those, 144 bulk carriers and 71 MPPs were laden: cargo on board, nowhere to go. The remainder were ballasting, caught mid-reposition at exactly the wrong moment.
To understand why this number matters, it helps to know what normal looks like. In the months preceding the conflict, between 20 and 30 dry bulk vessels crossed the Strait of Hormuz per month — a modest but economically significant flow underpinning grain, fertilizer, and industrial mineral supply chains between the Gulf and Asia. That flow had not slowed. It had stopped.
Over the following two weeks, as the broader situation failed to normalise, the total fleet of all vessel types west of Hormuz continued to grow. By 9 March it had reached 1,061 vessels. By 12 March, 1,062 — the peak recorded during the month. The Gulf had effectively become a holding area for a substantial fraction of global merchant shipping.
The size picture
The trapped dry bulk fleet was not concentrated at one end of the size spectrum. Panamaxes (68–85K dwt) and Supramaxes (50–60K dwt) accounted for the largest shares, reflecting their role as the primary workhorses of Gulf commodity trades. Handysizes (25–40K dwt) were also well represented.
At the upper end, four standard Capesize bulkers in the 170–180K dwt range were among the largest vessels present — a reminder that the Gulf does attract larger tonnage for bauxite, limestone, and bulk mineral exports, even if it is not a traditional Capesize routing.
What Was Locked Inside
Vessel counts give a sense of scale. Cargo volumes tell the supply chain story. AXSMarine's mid-March commodity analysis translated the trapped dry bulk fleet into tonnage terms — and the picture it produced was of a disruption hitting several import markets at once.
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