Weilun Soon

A handful of vessels appeared to transit through the Strait of Hormuz in the early hours of Wednesday, even after a spate of strikes on tankers left shipowners struggling to assess the risk of operating in the vital waterway.

Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz came to a near standstill on Thursday, after the US struck Iran for a second straight day as a fragile truce between the two sides looked increasingly shaky.

Der Schiffsverkehr durch die Straße von Hormus ist am Donnerstag nahezu zum Erliegen gekommen, nachdem die USA den Iran den zweiten Tag in Folge angegriffen haben.

Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz came to a near standstill on Thursday, after the US struck Iran for a second straight day as a fragile truce between

Strait is a critical energy route Oil tankers and cargo vessels are anchored off the coast of Oman. (Elke Scholiers/Getty Images/Bloomberg)

A steady stream of ships have passed through the Strait of Hormuz in secret in recent days, while observable traffic has dwindled, following the resumption of fighting between the US and Iran.

Eine Handvoll Schiffe hat die Straße von Hormus in den vergangenen Tagen heimlich passiert. Sichtbare Durchfahrten kamen dagegen nach dem Wiederaufflammen der Angriffe zwischen den USA und Iran nahezu zum Erliegen.

The escalation of hostilities between the Washington and Tehran and the virtual standstill in observable traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is prompting Asian oil refiners to try and buy more US crude.

Two United Arab Emirates-linked supertankers came under attack while sailing “dark” through the Strait of Hormuz, threatening one of the main methods of getting non-Iranian crude to the global market during the war.