Strait of Hormuz attacks and the oil price, July 2026

Twenty attacks on merchant shipping. One US Treasury designation. A twelve percent move in the world oil price that had completely unwound four days later. Here is what each record says, and the point at which the evidence runs out.

Between 19 July and 1 August 2026 the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre logged roughly twenty attacks on merchant shipping at the approaches to the Strait of Hormuz and along the Oman coast. Tankers were struck by projectiles and by uncrewed aerial vehicles off Kumzar, Dibba, Limah, Khasab and Qalhat. A container ship was abandoned east of Oman. A hijacked vessel was taken into Somali waters. On 31 July and 1 August two further vessels were hit, one of them left with its engine room damaged and not under command.

On 29 July, in the middle of that run, the US Treasury announced that it had disrupted what it calls the Iranian regime's Strait of Hormuz extortion network.

Across the same window the official US price series for Brent crude moved from $94.12 a barrel to $105.32 and back down to $91.82.

Those are three separate records, kept by three organisations that do not coordinate with one another: a naval authority in Portsmouth, a finance ministry in Washington, and a statistical agency in Washington. This piece sets them side by side with their dates. It does not tell you that one caused another.

What the shipping record says

UKMTO is the first point of contact for merchant vessels in distress across the Middle East and Indian Ocean region, which means its reports come from ships' masters and company security officers rather than from a news desk. On 1 August its board carried 24 live incident reports, each with a position, a vessel type, a description of damage and a status.

You can read that board yourself. It is public, it is updated continuously, and it is published under the Open Government Licence. Its full address is printed at the foot of this article. Nothing in this article about the attacks comes from anywhere else.

One warning if you go and look. The page is built so that it renders its contents only in a browser. A plain automated request returns “0 reports,” which is how a public safety record that updates daily can be invisible to anything that is not a person with a screen.

The dates that matter for what follows are 19, 20 and 22 July, when attacks were logged off Kumzar, Dibba and Limah.

What the Treasury record says

Treasury published three separate actions against Iran-linked networks in eight days. On 24 July it designated four individuals and nine entities that it described as components of the financier Babak Zanjani's sanctions evasion network. On 29 July it designated two firms it named as running an IRGC-backed scheme requiring commercial vessels to buy maritime insurance to transit the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf Marine Insurance Company and HormuzSafe Marine Services Authority. On 30 July it designated six entities and individuals in China, India, Russia and Iran connected to Mahan Air and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Treasury press releases are US federal works and are therefore in the public domain. Every claim above comes from the three releases directly, and each one is addressed individually at the foot of this article.

What the price record says

The figures below are the US Energy Information Administration's official Brent spot series. Each one is a measured observation with a date attached.

Measured Source: US Energy Information Administration. This series lags by several days. On 1 August 2026 the newest observation available was 27 July. It is never today's price and we do not present it as one.

From 22 to 23 July the series rose by 11.90 dollars, about twelve percent in a single day. Four days later it sat at 91.82, below where it started. The entire move came and went inside one working week, and the price finished the episode lower than it began it.

Set the two records against each other and the order is this. Attacks logged on 19, 20 and 22 July. A price of 94.12 on 22 July and 105.32 on 23 July. A Treasury designation on 29 July. A price of 91.82 on 27 July, which is to say before the designation.

This strait carries a fifth of the world's oil

The Strait of Hormuz sits between Oman and Iran and connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. In the first half of 2025, the most recent period the EIA has published, total oil flows through it averaged 20.9 million barrels a day. That was equivalent to about 20 percent of global petroleum liquids consumption and roughly one quarter of all seaborne traded oil. A further 11.4 billion cubic feet a day of liquefied natural gas passed through, which was over 20 percent of global LNG trade.

Alternatives to the strait exist and they are smaller than the flow. Saudi Aramco's East-West crude pipeline and the UAE's Abu Dhabi pipeline together offer about 4.7 million barrels a day of bypass capacity. Iran's Goreh-Jask pipeline has an effective capacity of around 0.3 million barrels a day. Against 20.9 million barrels a day moving through the water, those are partial routes.

Measured Source: US Energy Information Administration, World Oil Transit Chokepoints, last updated 3 March 2026, based on Vortexa tanker tracking. The most recent period published is the first half of 2025. These are not 2026 figures and we are not presenting them as current.

Where the oil ends up

Almost none of it comes west. In the first half of 2025, 89 percent of the crude oil and condensate that transited the strait went to Asian markets. China, India, Japan and South Korea took 74 percent between them.

The United States imported about 0.4 million barrels a day through the strait over the same period. That was about 7 percent of US crude oil and condensate imports and 2 percent of US petroleum liquids consumption. American crude imports from Persian Gulf countries are at their lowest level in forty years, which the EIA attributes to rising domestic production.

Measured Source: US Energy Information Administration, World Oil Transit Chokepoints, first half of 2025. We hold no equivalent figures for Canada, the United Kingdom or the European Union and are not going to estimate them.

So physical exposure and price exposure are two different quantities. A household in Osaka or Chennai sits at the end of a supply line that runs through this strait. A household in Ohio, for the most part, does not. Both of them buy fuel priced against a world benchmark.

On that point the EIA is explicit. Blockage of a major chokepoint, it states, “even temporarily, can lead to substantial supply delays and higher shipping costs, resulting in higher world energy prices.” The barrels are regional. The price is not.

What we have not measured

This is where the evidence is stopped before reaching your bill

This publication exists to trace what world events do to what an ordinary person pays. On this story the chain is documented from a projectile off the Oman coast to a world benchmark price, and it stops there.

We hold no measurement of what drivers paid at the pump in July 2026, in any country. We hold no measurement of the lag between a movement in Brent and a movement at a forecourt. We hold no measurement of how much of a benchmark move reaches a household bill and how much is absorbed by refiners, distributors and taxes along the way. In most countries fuel duty is a fixed amount per litre, so a crude move arrives at the pump diluted by a component that does not move at all. We have not quantified that for anywhere.

Twenty vessels were attacked in one of the most important waterways on earth, and the world price of oil finished the fortnight lower than it started. Both of those things are true. Holding them together, and saying out loud which link in the chain we cannot yet measure, is the whole job.