File photo of Strait of Hormuz
Paris, France: At least 37 commodity carriers transited the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, a record level since the start of the Middle East war in late February, according to data from the maritime tracking firm Kpler.
AXSMarine, another shipping data provider which tracks transits by commercial vessels including container ships, counted 42 crossings on Monday -- also a record.
Five empty liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers were among the ships crossing on Monday, according to Kpler.
"This may be one of the clearest signs so far of a tentative normalisation in traffic," Mihail Todorov of AXSMarine told AFP.
Monday's crossings equalled about a third of peacetime traffic through the strait, which normally sees around a fifth of the world's oil and gas exports pass through.
Overall commodities traffic through the strait -- which includes tankers carrying oil and LNG plus dry bulk cargoes such as fertilisers -- has increased slightly after Washington and Tehran reached an agreement last week to end the war.
Before the June 14 agreement, less than 10 commodity vessels went through the strait per day since the passage was closed by Iran on March 1 in retaliation against US and Israeli strikes.
Since June 15, the average has risen to 21, and reached 27 over the last five days.
LNG operators had previously been very cautious about transiting the strait.
Whether Iran will administer the vital passage remains one of the key questions in the talks set for the next two months.
