Weekly risk brief · No. 6
Strait of Hormuz runs at 12% of normal
77 weekly transit calls against a ~656 baseline; the Cape still carries 2.2× Suez's traffic.
Bosporus Strait is flagged watch at 68% of its 2024-25 baseline (447 against ~661 weekly calls). Strait of Hormuz is flagged critical at 12% of its 2024-25 baseline (77 against ~656 weekly calls). Kerch Strait is flagged critical at 13% of its 2024-25 baseline (8 against ~64 weekly calls).
The Red Sea corridor shows no structural change: 197 transit calls through Bab el-Mandeb in W30 (-84 on the week), and the rerouting index stands at 2.2, meaning the Cape of Good Hope carries 2.2 times the traffic of Suez. Above 1, the long way round is still the market’s default.
Movement of the week: Malacca Strait, up 64 calls week-on-week; the sharpest decline is Taiwan Strait, -179. The official picture: 7 security-relevant NAVAREA or HYDRO warnings active out of 386 broadcast (snapshot 2026-08-03).
This issue was generated automatically from IMF PortWatch daily transit data, NGA MSI broadcast warnings and the GDELT wire, using the observatory’s published methodology. Figures are as retrieved on 2026-08-03.