Hormuz Watch — 2026-07-30

BLUF

The war restarted and the oil moved anyway. Iran broke the three-night pause Jul 28 with an intercepted ballistic-missile “surprise attack” on US forces; Trump declared it “our turn” and CENTCOM spent two nights hitting Iranian air defenses, coastal radar, missile/drone sites and small boats — precisely the toolkit the IRGC uses to run its permission regime over the Strait of Hormuz. Simultaneously the US Navy began escorting tankers out: 14 transits Wednesday vs single digits last week (Kpler), Qatar’s first LNG cargo in three weeks, and Energy Sec Chris Wright claiming ~6.5 mb/d moved under military escort. Two reopening architectures now compete — Washington’s escorted corridor vs the Oman–Tehran permission regime — and the shooting has become the negotiation. The war also sprouted two fronts in 72 hours: Saudi Arabia joined US offensive strikes on proxies in Iraq, and a drone hit two LNG vessels at Egypt’s Damietta — the first attack on Egyptian soil, pre-flagged by Iranian TV as retaliation against Ukrainian interests. Brent’s verdict on all of it: ~$89.8, down ~1% — the market is pricing barrels, not bombs. That trade works until an escort convoy takes a hit.

Strait Status & Shipping

Day 151 of closure grading (per straits.live counter; consistent with Jul 27 = Day 148).
Traffic tripling under escort: 14 commodity vessels transited Hormuz both directions Wednesday vs single digits last week (Kpler, provisional). Chris Wright: “We are using the United States military to escort oil and gas out of the Strait of Hormuz” — ~6.5 mb/d over the past week. Treat as US-official until tracking confirms.
Al Areesh openly exited with Qatari LNG — Qatar’s first shipment in three weeks. LPG carrier CYH Yongchun transited dark. Norwegian-flag products tanker preparing to exit; two Iran-linked Suezmaxes (Chloe, Kariz) idling off Bandar Abbas.
Freight tells the real story: VLCC Jamaica Prosperity provisionally fixed at 465 Worldscale — ~$500k/day — for an Aug 3 Persian Gulf loading to China. Owners will run the strait at the right price; that price is 10x normal.
Read: this is escorted defiance, not reopening. Jul 27’s Watchpoint 3 (first sanctioned transit) triggered in mutated form — transits are flowing under US hulls, outside any agreed corridor scheme. Every escorted transit is a direct challenge to the IRGC interdiction regime that stopped ten vessels last weekend.
Carryover: ~6,000 seafarers on ~500 ships still trapped (IMO/UN); war-risk at 3–10% of hull with P&I withdrawals holding; no update on the Jul 27 interdicted vessel “incident.”

Naval / Military Ops

Pause broken by Tehran, Jul 28: Iran launched an intercepted ballistic-missile attack on US forces; Jordan air defenses downed five Iranian missiles after the IRGC announced strikes on US targets there. Iran’s framing: “the timing of war and peace is not yours to decide.”
US resumption, Jul 29 ~20:00 ET: CENTCOM struck Iranian air-defense systems, coastal radar, missile and drone capabilities, and small boats — a SEAD/counter-maritime package aimed at the interdiction toolkit, not regime targets. Fresh strikes continued into Jul 30 (Bloomberg).
Read: target selection is the message. Washington is not escalating to Tehran’s cost tolerance — it is shooting the permission regime’s enforcement arm while escorting tankers through the gap. Strike list and escort operation are one policy.
Saudi Arabia crossed the combatant line: Riyadh joined US strikes on Iranian proxies in Iraq after drones launched from Iraqi territory targeted Eastern Province oil facilities and Riyadh (downed Jul 28). The kingdom is now in offensive coalition ops — Dan Caine’s July brake is spent doctrine.
No new Houthi wave on Jizan/Yanbu reported this cycle; the Iraq-launched drones show Iranian-aligned militias substituting for Yemen on the Saudi front.

Red Sea / Mediterranean

Damietta strike, Jul 29 14:20 GMT: drone hit US-owned FSRU Energos Winter; fire spread to LNG carrier Gaslog Salem. No injuries, fire contained, no claim — but Iranian state TV flagged Damietta two days prior as retaliation for a Ukrainian strike on an Iranian vessel in the Caspian. First attack on Egyptian soil this war.
Read: the Med/Suez node is now in play, and the Ukraine–Iran loop has jumped theaters. If the Caspian tit-for-tat continues, Egyptian LNG infrastructure and Suez approaches price in — a fourth insurance zone.
Bab el-Mandeb: 21 transits Wednesday vs 38 Tuesday; only Russian crude exiting (~3.5 mb). Some tankers entering Gulf of Aden signaling Yanbu calls despite Houthi threat; August Yanbu loadings being booked with Bab el-Mandeb exit options — the Saudi bypass is being tested from both ends.
Sidi Kerir workaround scaling: Takamatsu Maru diverting, Bidbid and VL Prosperity loading, three VLCCs idling off the port awaiting orders. Saudi crude is reaching Asia via the Mediterranean back door.

Black Sea / CPC

CPC restarted Jul 27 — Novorossiysk terminal accepting crude and loading tankers again after the week-long drone shutdown; Kazakhstan exports resumed. Watchpoint 6 resolved favorably.
Damage done: Kazakh H1 output −8.4% y/y (45.7 Mt); Tengiz production more than halved during the halt. Restart is fragile — the terminal remains one drone from re-suspension, and the Caspian tit-for-tat (Ukrainian strike on Iranian vessel) keeps the theater hot.

Energy Markets

Brent **~ $89.8, - 1.1$ 83.4); holding the ~$90 band despite full resumption of hostilities. The Jul 27 fade thesis survived its stress test: the market is pricing flow restoration (escorts + CPC restart + Qatari LNG) over escalation headlines.
Structure of the trade: three impaired nodes are now two (CPC back), Hormuz throughput is recovering under escort, and Sidi Kerir/Yanbu bypasses are functioning. Physical supply math genuinely improved this week even as the war re-ignited.
The asymmetry is unchanged: a successful attack on an escorted convoy, a Damietta repeat, or a CPC re-suspension snaps the premium back violently. This is a market short volatility on three fronts at once.
US retail gasoline >$4/gal carryover; Iran fuel rationing still unannounced — both political-pressure variables open.

Diplomacy

Oman–Iran bilateral track survived the resumption — Tehran insists talks are “unrelated to the United States” and continuing. The floated compromise: Iran administers Hormuz transit “with fewer restrictions” — i.e., the permission regime ratified with softer terms.
Bloomberg’s assessment: deadlock, war likely drags months. The June interim deal collapsed precisely over freedom-of-navigation language; both sides now pursue facts on the water instead — Iran via interdictions, Washington via escorts.
Read: the negotiation hasn’t stopped, it has militarized. Whoever’s architecture handles more tonnage by the next talks round holds the table. Watch whether Muscat can keep the channel open while its two interlocutors shoot at each other’s navigation infrastructure.

Watchpoints

First IRGC–USN contact — an interdiction attempt against an escorted tanker is the single worst trigger in the war. Nothing else converts to direct state-on-state naval combat as fast.
Strike BDA vs interdiction capacity — if CENTCOM’s SEAD/coastal-radar/small-boat strikes measurably degrade IRGC enforcement, the permission regime dies and escorted transit becomes the default reopening. Watch for interdiction attempts that fail.
Transit count trend — 14 Wednesday; sustained >20/day under escort = structural reopening regardless of diplomacy; regression to single digits = escort capacity is the binding constraint.
Damietta follow-on — a second Mediterranean strike makes Egypt/Suez a theater, not an incident. Watch Cairo’s response and Suez war-risk pricing.
Saudi retaliation loop — Riyadh in offensive ops + militia drones from Iraq = Gulf-wide escalation channel independent of the US–Iran track.
**Brent $90 ban d * * — h o l d in g = f l o w - res t or a t i o n t h es i s v in d i c a t e d; b re ak >$ 95 means one of watchpoints 1/4/5 fired.
CPC continuity — restarted but exposed; re-suspension re-tightens the physical floor immediately.
Oman channel survival — a Muscat communiqué during active strikes = talks are real; silence = both sides have chosen the water as the table.

Delta vs Jul 27 Digest

Watchpoint 1 (fourth dark night + talks readout) — RESOLVED NEGATIVE: Iran broke the pause Jul 28 with a missile attack; US resumed strikes Jul 29–30. The pause was consolidation, not pre-agreement.
Watchpoint 2 (interdicted vessel “incident”) — NO UPDATE; carried forward.
Watchpoint 3 (first sanctioned transit) — TRIGGERED, MUTATED: transits resumed under US Navy escort, not the two-corridor scheme. Competing architectures, not agreed reopening.
Watchpoint 4 (Houthi silence) — HELD ON THE YEMEN VECTOR, but Iraq-launched militia drones hit at Saudi targets Jul 28 — the proxy front rotated, not closed. Saudi joined offensive strikes in response.
Watchpoint 5 (Brent hold at $90) — * * H E L D * * :$ 89.8–91 band all week despite resumption; fade thesis survived because physical flows improved.
Watchpoint 6 (CPC restart) — RESOLVED FAVORABLY: loadings resumed Jul 27; Kazakh export flow restored.
Watchpoints 7 (Jizan BDA) / 8 (Iran rationing) — UNRESOLVED, carried forward.
New variables: US Navy escort operation (~6.5 mb/d claim); CENTCOM SEAD/counter-maritime target set; Saudi Arabia in offensive coalition ops; Damietta strike / Egypt-Med theater; Ukraine–Iran Caspian loop; Qatari LNG resumption; $500k/day VLCC fixture.

Hormuz Watch — Daily Digest