The Ormuz Strait only seemingly empty. Tankers disappear from AIS data

The headlines about the "closure" of the Ormuz Strait are good for imagination, but they may not give up what really happens on this trail. More and more shows that the problem is not just about Iranian transition control. Equally important may be that part of the oil tanker movement simply disappears from the publicly available image.

From a report published by Citrini Research, thesis appears that ships with oil loads are still passing through the Ormuz Strait, but a significant part of this movement can be hidden by falsifying AIS data and limiting the visibility of individuals in public tracking systems.

Parts of movement just can't be seen

The point of the matter is no longer just to ask whether Iran is passing the selected units. Equally important is the market seeing a full scale of traffic in the Strait area. According to the Citrini Research report, about half of the tanker traffic may not be visible in public AIS data.

These mechanisms are also well known for the activities of the tankers operating in the shadow fleet model, where hiding positions, changing the identity of the unit or turning off the AIS are used to celebrate sanctions and blur the actual image of traffic.

Importantly, these methods do not need to be particularly complicated. In many cases, it is enough to disable the transponder, change the identification data or limit the power of the signal to make the unit fall out of the public traffic image.

That's why you can see a trail almost empty on the ship's traffic-tracks, although in reality transit Still going on.

Counterfeiting AIS data obscures the real picture of the situation

If this mechanism actually works on such a scale, the problem will no longer concern Iran alone. It also begins to concern the quality of data on which a large part of market comments, analyses and media assessments of the situation are based.

Public vessel tracking systems have been an important tool for shipowners, fuel market analysts and the media for years. However, if a significant proportion of the units passing through Ormuz fall out of this image, the assessment of the situation by definition becomes incomplete.

In practice, this means that the world can see only part of traffic, and on this basis build much further conclusions on the scale of disruption, risks to supply and pressure on raw materials prices. The same condition is destabilising because it undermines the credibility of the basic picture of the situation at sea.

Tankers still pass through the Ormuz, but you don't always see them in the AIS

However, according to the report's authors, this does not mean returning to normal freedom of navigation. Their thesis is different: Ormuz is not completely closed today, but is filtered, and the passing of some units is to be decided by the conditions imposed by Iran.

That's the difference. Full blockade would mean stopping transit. Meanwhile, the movement continues, although some tankers disappear from publicly available data.

The report also shows that since the start of the war, over $3 billion in oil charges could have passed through the Strait, mainly to Asian customers. This shows that despite tension and interference, the transit did not freeze completely.

It is precisely this uncertainty that the oil trade, insurance costs and transport rates are hit hardest today.

The market pays for the lack of transparency

According to the report's authors, the market initially valued a full-block scenario, which was to boost Brent's quotes in the area of $115 per barrel. The subsequent adjustment towards approximately $108 was to result from the belief that the movement did not freeze completely but was limited and partly hidden.

In such a situation, the threat of closing the Strait itself begins to act almost as strongly as the actual restriction of traffic. If market participants are not sure how many ships they are actually going through, who controls transit and what actual shipping conditions are, the risk premium automatically increases.

This translates into freight rates, insurance costs, cargo valuation and overall assessment of shipping safety in the region. Even if part of the oil is still flowing, it does not mean that it is back to normal. On the contrary. The less transparent the picture of the situation, the greater the space for nervous market reactions, speculation and political gameplay.

In practice, this means that the war in the region is not only through rockets, threats and patrols, but also by falsifying AIS data that makes it difficult for the market, shipowners and media to assess the actual situation.

The biggest problem today is not the blockade itself.

Therefore, looking at the Ormuz Strait only in terms of the "closed" or "open" trail simply is not enough. More and more shows that the movement did not completely freeze, but was limited, partly hidden and subject to new conditions.

From the point of view of the energy and shipping market, this is bad news. Not because everything stopped, but because it's getting harder to assess what part of the movement was left really halted, which is still outside the reach of publicly available data.

That is why the main problem of this route can today be not the threat of formal blockade, but a combination of two phenomena: the selection of traffic under Iran's conditions and the disappearance of parts of tankers from AIS data.