Four in five barrels leaving the Gulf on 21 September were loaded outside Hormuz, tracking data shows

The maritime intelligence firm Windward, reporting on 22 September on the previous day’s traffic, recorded six tankers crossing from the Gulf of Oman into the Arabian Sea between 00:00 and 23:59 UTC on 21 September, carrying a combined 9.76 million barrels. Five of the six had been loaded by ship-to-ship transfer off Fujairah, accounting for 7.71 million barrels — roughly 79 percent of the day’s total. That is one vendor’s AIS-derived dataset over one 24-hour period, and should be read as a snapshot rather than a trend line. It nonetheless lands between the two official positions. Al Jazeera reported on 3 September that Washington says the strait is open and that dozens of ships and millions of barrels pass daily, and that Trump had claimed the US was in “total control” of the waterway and helping around 30 ships cross a day; ship-tracking data, the network said, suggests a far lower figure. On 7 September it reported Hormuz traffic falling while the US insisted the waterway was “fully open.”

Prices moved on the diplomacy, not the throughput. CNBC reported Brent up 3.9 percent to settle at $103.08 a barrel on 23 September and WTI up 1.8 percent at $92.16, snapping five consecutive sessions of losses, and attributed the move to Pezeshkian’s refusal to capitulate. Fortune’s 10:00 ET snapshot the same day had Brent at $102.03, up $2.76 on the previous morning and roughly $34 above the same point a year earlier. The American Petroleum Institute reported a 1.8 million barrel build in US crude stocks, with gasoline and distillates drawing down. The larger supply variable is not in New York: Saudi Arabia’s East-West Crude Oil Pipeline was shut on 11 September, confirmed by the energy ministry that day, and as of 23 September the kingdom was said to be preparing to resume exports through it “in the coming days” — a restart that would route barrels around Hormuz entirely. No date and no volume have been announced.

Germany put the commercial substance on the record where the negotiators have not. Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, who met Araghchi at the General Assembly on 22 September, wrote afterwards that Iran “must engage constructively in talks for a sustainable solution to end the conflict in the region & unconditionally open the Strait of Hormuz, ensuring free, safe and toll-free navigation for all.” The operative word is toll-free: it is the only public indication from any government of what the disputed mechanism in the strait actually is, and it points at transit fees rather than outright closure.

Assessment: The Fujairah ratio is the number to carry into the next round of talks. If four-fifths of outbound crude is already being loaded east of the chokepoint, then “reopening Hormuz” is worth less to the market than either side’s rhetoric implies, and the real bargaining chip is the US naval blockade, not the strait itself. Wadephul’s “toll-free” tells you Europe believes Tehran is monetising passage rather than denying it — a rentier position, not a siege. Distrust any single oil print this week: three outlets published contradictory Brent narratives for the same session. And watch Riyadh. An East-West restart would do more to the price than anything said from the podium.