Three oil supertankers sail through the Strait of Hormuz

Two Chinese supertankers loaded with crude sailed through the Strait of Hormuz hours after a Greek vessel moved through the waterway, marking a significant uptick in oil shipping traffic days after a fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran was announced.

It represents the biggest day of oil exits through Hormuz since the war caused traffic through the waterway to all but halt six weeks ago. None are carrying oil from the Islamic Republic or have obvious, direct links to the country.

The reopening of Hormuz is critical to the world’s oil trade because its closure has resulted in the loss of millions of barrels of supply to global markets. A resumption would alleviate pressure on increasingly tight physical markets everywhere. The US and Iran are set to hold peace talks in Islamabad in the coming days.

The two Chinese supertankers are the first from the Asian nation observed taking barrels out of Persian Gulf, a boon for Beijing but nevertheless underscoring that the country has also been squeezed by the conflict.

In oil-flow terms, the exits are significant but still way below peace-time levels. 

The three tankers between them have a transport capacity of about 6 million barrels of crude. In addition, Iran, the only country really sending barrels through, exported at a rate of about 1.7 million barrels a day last month. That would imply roughly half the normal rate of shipments through the waterway — and only on a single d...