The Ceasefire That Did Not Restore the Baseline
The Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding signed between the United States and Iran on June 17, 2026, which established the 60-day toll-free ceasefire framework and created the formal structure for negotiation toward a permanent agreement, was greeted by the oil market with the relief rally that erased the war premium whose accumulation since February 28 had pushed Brent crude from approximately seventy dollars per barrel to a peak above one hundred and twenty dollars per barrel during the height of the Strait of Hormuz closure. Brent fell toward seventy-two dollars per barrel in early July as tanker traffic recovered to approximately two hundred and seventy percent of the near-zero flows during the conflict's most acute phase, and the Goldman Sachs forecast of Brent returning to sixty dollars by year-end and the Citigroup assessment of global oil oversupply returning created the market narrative that the Hormuz crisis was effectively resolved. The 60-day toll-free period expired in mid-August, and what the oil market is now absorbing in late September is the commercial reality that the post-ceasefire Strait of Hormuz is not the pre-war Strait of Hormuz and the structural difference between the two creates the oil supply chain cost that the market has been progressively repricing since the toll regime's emergence from informal to institutionalised.
Iran's parliament has passed legislation codifying the transit fee framework for Strait of Hormuz passage, and Iran's Foreign Ministry has confirmed that the joint Iran-Oman maritime management arrangement for the strait includes a per-transit fee structure whose formal rate has been publicly indicated at the equivalent of the informal $2 million per passage that Bloomberg reported as being collected on an ad-hoc basis from July 28 onward. The $2 million per VLCC transit, which carries approximately 2 million barrels of crude oil, translates to approximately $1 per barrel of crude transported through the strait, whose annualised cost at the approximately 15 to 18 million barrels per day of liquid energy flows that typically transit the strait when it is fully operational represents a structural increase in the cost of Gulf oil delivery to Asian markets whose magnitude is small relative to the crude price but commercially significant relative to the tanker freight rate and the refining margin that determine the delivered economics of Gulf crude for Asian refiners.
The Saudi Yanbu Pipeline and Its Constraints
Saudi Aramco's East-West Pipeline, which carries crude oil from the Eastern Province producing fields to the Red Sea port of Yanbu whose loading terminals provide an export route to European and American markets that does not require Hormuz transit, has been operating at maximum capacity since the conflict began, with Saudi Arabia shipping an average of approximately 3.3 million barrels per day from its west coast ports during the conflict's acute phase and continuing to maximise Yanbu exports during the ceasefire period rather than reverting to the Ras Tanura and Ju'aymah Gulf export terminals whose Hormuz-transiting route now carries the informal toll cost that reduces the economics of Hormuz-routed exports relative to the toll-free Yanbu alternative. The East-West Pipeline's maximum nameplate capacity of 7 million barrels per day, of which approximately 5 million barrels per day is available for export after domestic refinery supply, creates the capacity ceiling that limits Saudi Arabia's ability to route all its crude exports through the Yanbu alternative regardless of the Hormuz toll regime's economic incentive to do so. Saudi Arabia's crude export volume averaged approximately 7 to 7.5 million barrels per day pre-war, of which the approximately 5 million barrels per day Yanbu capacity covers the majority but not the totality, requiring the residual 2 to 2.5 million barrels per day to either transit Hormuz with the toll cost or reduce Saudi export volume until the Yanbu pipeline expansion whose feasibility study Saudi Aramco commissioned in March 2026 creates the additional pipeline capacity that full Hormuz-avoidance routing would require.
The UAE's Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline, which carries Abu Dhabi crude from the Habshan inland producing fields to the Fujairah export terminal on the Gulf of Oman whose position outside the Hormuz strait eliminates the transit fee for UAE crude exports, provides the UAE with the Hormuz-free export route that Saudi Arabia's Yanbu capacity cannot fully provide. ADNOC has maximised Fujairah pipeline throughput since the conflict's outbreak, and the commercial advantage of Fujairah-origin crude whose delivered cost to Asian refiners does not include the Hormuz toll premium creates the price differential between UAE Murban crude from Fujairah and Saudi Arab Light from Ras Tanura that the toll regime has introduced as a structural feature of Gulf crude pricing for Asian buyers. The crude grade competition among Gulf, Russian, West African, and US WTI crude for the Asian refinery market is now being recalibrated with the Hormuz toll cost as an explicit input to the delivered economics calculation that determines which grade each Asian refinery purchases for each cargo, with Russian Urals crude whose ESPO pipeline export route through Kozmino port on the Pacific coast requires no Hormuz transit experiencing an effective competitive advantage relative to the Hormuz-dependent Gulf crude whose toll adds to the delivered cost differential that the Russia-price-cap-constrained Urals discount to Brent had previously been the primary pricing variable.
The Insurance Structure and the Formal Toll
The transition of the Hormuz transit fee from the informal $2 million per-voyage ad-hoc payment that Bloomberg documented from late July to the formally legislated fee whose rate and collection mechanism Iran's parliament has now codified creates a legal and insurance treatment question whose resolution is commercially material for the P&I clubs and war risk underwriters whose policy coverage of the toll payment's treatment as extortion, piracy, or legitimate transit fee determines whether the fee cost is recoverable under hull war risk insurance or represents an uninsured voyage cost that the vessel owner bears as a shipping expense. The Joint War Committee's Listed Areas designation, which covers the Persian Gulf and the approaches to the Strait of Hormuz as an area requiring additional war risk insurance premium, remains in place despite the ceasefire, creating the structural war risk premium whose combination with the formal Hormuz toll creates the two-layer cost addition that Gulf-origin crude cargoes now carry above the pre-February 2026 baseline.
Top 10 Companies in Gulf Oil Export Infrastructure, Tanker Operations, and Energy Trade Finance Globally
- Saudi Aramco: Saudi state oil company with East-West Pipeline to Yanbu at maximum capacity and Ras Tanura Hormuz-dependent export terminal; its dual export route strategy and its Yanbu pipeline expansion feasibility study create the oil exporter most directly managing the economic consequences of the Hormuz toll regime whose Yanbu capacity constraint determines how much of Saudi crude incurs the toll cost.
- ADNOC (Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline): UAE state oil company with Fujairah export terminal outside Hormuz providing toll-free crude export; its Fujairah pipeline capacity and its Murban crude pricing advantage over Hormuz-transiting Gulf grades create the Gulf oil company whose infrastructure positioning outside the toll regime creates the structural pricing advantage whose magnitude the Hormuz toll formalisation has amplified.
- Frontline: Norwegian VLCC tanker company with Gulf crude tanker operations whose charter economics now include the Hormuz toll as a voyage cost component; its VLCC fleet deployment in the Arabian Gulf and its charter rate negotiations with oil majors create the tanker company whose commercial exposure to the Hormuz toll mechanism is most directly reflected in the charter rate adjustments that the formal toll regime's introduction has required.
- Euronav: Belgian VLCC tanker company with Gulf crude transport and war risk insurance exposure; its tanker fleet operating in the Hormuz corridor and its JWC Listed Areas war risk insurance costs create the tanker company whose voyage economics now incorporate both the formal Hormuz toll and the elevated war risk insurance premium that the JWC Listed Areas designation maintains despite the ceasefire framework.
- Vitol: Swiss-Dutch oil trading company with Gulf crude purchase and logistics coordination across Hormuz-transiting and Yanbu-routed cargoes; its crude oil trading and arbitrage operations and its voyage cost optimisation across Gulf crude routing alternatives create the oil trader whose delivered cost calculations most directly reflect the commercial impact of the Hormuz toll on the total delivered economics of Gulf crude to Asian refinery customers.
- Trafigura: Swiss commodity trader with Gulf crude and refined product trading across the Hormuz corridor; its trading book across Gulf crude grades and its logistics coordination of Hormuz-transiting and alternative-routed cargoes create the commodity trader whose cargo economics most directly incorporate the toll cost as a freight component in its delivered crude pricing to Asian buyers.
- Scorpio Tankers: Monaco tanker company with product tanker fleet operating in the Arabian Gulf whose war risk exposure and charter rates reflect the Hormuz toll regime's effect on refined product transport economics; its Middle East product tanker operations and its war risk insurance positioning create the product tanker company whose commercial metrics most directly quantify the Hormuz toll's effect on refined product rather than crude export economics.
- Lloyd's List Intelligence: UK maritime data and intelligence company with AIS vessel tracking and Hormuz transit traffic monitoring; its vessel movement data tracking the recovery of tanker transits from the near-zero conflict lows toward the pre-war baseline and its war risk coverage analysis create the maritime intelligence company whose data most directly measures the actual commercial recovery of Hormuz traffic that the market's oil supply recovery assessment requires.
- Lloyd's Joint War Committee: UK insurance market committee with Arabian Gulf Listed Areas designation maintained through ceasefire; its war risk premium setting for vessels in the Persian Gulf and its Listed Areas boundary definition create the insurance market body whose continued designation of Gulf waters as war risk areas despite the ceasefire maintains the structural insurance cost premium that compounds with the formal Hormuz toll to create the total shipping cost addition above the pre-February 2026 baseline.
- Kpler: French commodity flow analytics company with AIS-based tanker tracking and Gulf crude export flow monitoring; its real-time tracking of Saudi Yanbu versus Ras Tanura export routing and its VLCC transit count through the Strait of Hormuz create the analytics company whose data most precisely quantifies the daily commercial consequence of the toll regime and the Yanbu pipeline constraint on the total volume and routing of Gulf crude exports reaching Asian markets.