Eleanor Danby China's two largest state-owned oil shippers, COSCO Shipping Energy Transportation and China Merchants Energy Shipping, have kept their combined fleet of very large crude carriers out of the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab strait since late July, according to Gulf News.
Trump said Tuesday there are no talks planned with Iran and insisted the Strait of Hormuz remains open, despite limited traffic and a reported attack on a ship. He also threatened Oman over its efforts to broker a shipping agreement with Tehran, according to France24.
The two firms began avoiding both chokepoints on instructions from Chinese authorities, citing risks after Yemen's Houthis declared a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia on 20 July and Hormuz stayed largely shut following the collapse of a brief US-Iran interim deal reached in June. Roughly two dozen of their vessels are scheduled to load outside the Persian Gulf between August and mid-September, mainly off Fujairah and Omani ports, with ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman exceeding 600,000 barrels a day in June and July, up from zero in April and May.
State shippers carrying Beijing's instructions are harder to dismiss than diplomatic rhetoric. Hypothesis: China is hedging its own energy security through its shipping champions rather than relying on US assurances that Hormuz is open. Supporting this: the explicit routing directive from Chinese authorities and the transfer infrastructure built off Fujairah. Against it: rerouting may simply reflect ordinary commercial risk-pricing by the shippers, distinct from a formal Beijing policy stance, and Chinese officials have not publicly contradicted Washington's line.
What to watch: whether other national fleets follow China's lead; whether Washington responds to the gap between its rhetoric and market behaviour; and whether Oman's shipping-agreement talks with Tehran advance despite Trump's threat.
