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Was the Strait ever ‘closed’?
Powerlineblog ^ | April 17, 2026 | Bill Glahn

Posted on 04/17/2026 9:36:30 PM PDT by lasereye

This is a serious question. It seems that on alternate days, “Iran” declares that the Strait of Hormuz is open. The Strait is closed. The Strait is open with strict Iran-favorable conditions. The Strait is closed to all except Iran friends and family.

We never get a straight story. I follow the shipping news closely and even in the darkest days of the Iran crisis, a least a few ships appeared to be getting through.

Early on, Iran made some threats that they were never in any position to follow through on. Nonetheless, insurance companies panicked, ship owners got cold feet, and the flow slowed to a trickle. But I don’t believe that it ever actually stopped.

Later, “Iran” claimed to have laid mines in the Strait, but also claimed that they couldn’t remember where the mines were placed.

As Zerohedge points out, the moment of truth is about to arrive,

Persian Gulf Tanker Armada Races For Hormuz After Iran Says Strait Is Open https://t.co/BggzQF6v1E— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 17, 2026

Will they get through? Or will they chicken out and reverse course?

Meanwhile, the New York Post reports,

The first commercial ship successfully sailed through the Strait of Hormuz Friday after Iran agreed to reopen the vital waterway following a weeks-long closure.

The Celestyal Discovery cruise ship cleared the strait, just hours after Iran Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced the narrow waterway was once again fully open to all commercial vessels — after the Iranian regime had threatened to attack any ship that transited it following the launch of the US and Israel’s war on Tehran.

Bon voyage!


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KEYWORDS: blogger; straitofhormuz; tds

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1 posted on 04/17/2026 9:36:30 PM PDT by lasereye
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To: lasereye
At the link below scroll down for a graph of Hormuz traffic in the last 50 days. It is all outgoing traffic broken down by type of ship.

Strait of Hormuz Traffic Live Vessel Tracking

2 posted on 04/17/2026 9:46:44 PM PDT by TigersEye (The Democrat Party - like the love child of La Cosa Nostra and Al Qaeda )
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To: lasereye

The “Strait” was never straight and neither was its handling by the Iranians.

“The path of least resistance makes all rivers, and most men, crooked.”— Napoleon Hill.


3 posted on 04/17/2026 9:56:42 PM PDT by frank ballenger (There's a battle outside and it's raging. It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls. )
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To: TigersEye

IEA says oil supply fell approx 10% in March, which is double the relative size of the 1973 Oil Shock

https://www.iea.org/reports/oil-market-report-april-2026


4 posted on 04/17/2026 11:22:09 PM PDT by Reverend Wright ( Anschluss now !)
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To: Reverend Wright

True. It isn’t insignificant.

Thankfully Brent crude is down to $85 bucks, the stock market is roaring like a turbocharged dragster, gold and silver are going up again and I sure don’t see anyone waiting in line for gas.

Except those foreign tankers coming to the Gulf of America for U.S. crude.


5 posted on 04/17/2026 11:48:56 PM PDT by TigersEye (The Democrat Party - like the love child of La Cosa Nostra and Al Qaeda )
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