About $125 billion in vessels and cargo, some 1,150 ships and as many as 20,000 seafarers, is still stuck in the Persian Gulf waiting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, insurer Allianz Commercial estimates.
Allianz calls this marks the start of a “new maritime order” shaped by higher risk premiums and a durable shift toward resilience over cost. For shippers, the near-term point is timing. War-risk premiums and high spot rates triggered by the closure are locked in for months, not days.
The scale: Allianz’s Safety and Shipping Review 2026 puts the backlog at:
Roughly 1,150 cargo vessels, 29 million gross tonnes
Around 20,000 seafarers waiting aboard. The IMO separately estimates more than 11,000 need evacuation
Two transit corridors are open, one through Iranian waters and one through Omani waters, and the first ships are beginning to move
The reopening: Traffic is trickling back unevenly, running well below the roughly 130 daily crossings before the crisis, which began in late February. Fertilizer is recovering fastest, rebounding to about 530,000 tons in the week ended June 21 from near zero during the conflict. At least 18 of more than 40 stranded fertilizer ships have now departed, most headed for Asia.
The rate math: The Drewry World Container Index hit $3,969 per FEU the week of June 18, an 18-month high, and has continued to rise. Xeneta’s Peter Sand expects spot rates to increase “for at least another four weeks,” with ships “full on trades out of Asia for weeks in advance.” The Asia-US lane is tightening further as an early peak-season and retailer restocking add pressure on top of the disruption. Sand sees full recovery no earlier than mid-September.
The cost cascade: The disruption flows from insurer to carrier to shipper. Allianz’s Capt. Rahul Khanna calls it “a price for uncertainty, shifting from ‘just-in-time’ to ‘just-in-case’ supply chains.”
Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc said the conflict is adding about $500 million a month to the company’s costs, and that “we're able to pass those costs on to our customers.”
Allianz’s broader argument is that this is structural, not temporary. US Transportation Command is even moving to lock in capacity, opening a five-year solicitation to pre-contract commercially owned roll-on/roll-off ships it can charter in wartime.
