Strait of Hormuz shipping grinds to a halt ahead of U.S.-Iran ceasefire expiry

JUST IN: Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has ground to a halt, with no vessels registered to pass on Sunday, as the US-Iran ceasefire is set to expire Monday with no deal in sight.

Zero ships. That's how many vessels were registered to pass through the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday.

This is the waterway that carries a fifth of the world's oil, normally around 130 transits a day. Saturday managed five cargo ships. The same weekend a week earlier saw 31. Traffic is down 90 percent since the war began in February, and you can see the queue building here, tankers sitting at anchor, going nowhere.

The US-Iran ceasefire expires today with talks dead in the water. Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi says there are no negotiations at all, just messages passed through Qatar and Pakistan. And Trump said last week he'll soon declare the strait a territory of the United States, to which Tehran replied it opens and closes under Iran's command only.

Here's what unsettles me. Brent crude is at 88 dollars and drifting lower. The oil market is calm, the water isn't. One of those two is wrong.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.

Source Read the original reporting at cnbc.com