Weekly risk brief · No. 7
Strait of Hormuz runs at 5% of normal
25 weekly transit calls against a ~538 baseline; the Cape still carries 2.25× Suez's traffic.
Bosporus Strait is flagged watch at 58% of its 2024-25 baseline (381 against ~661 weekly calls). Strait of Hormuz is flagged critical at 5% of its 2024-25 baseline (25 against ~538 weekly calls). Kerch Strait is flagged critical at 3% of its 2024-25 baseline (2 against ~64 weekly calls).
The Red Sea corridor shows no structural change: 205 transit calls through Bab el-Mandeb in W33 (+29 on the week), and the rerouting index stands at 2.25, meaning the Cape of Good Hope carries 2.25 times the traffic of Suez. Above 1, the long way round is still the market’s default.
Movement of the week: Taiwan Strait, up 432 calls week-on-week; the sharpest decline is Bosporus Strait, -59. The official picture: 7 security-relevant NAVAREA or HYDRO warnings active out of 386 broadcast (snapshot 2026-08-24).
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 2026-08-24.