Nomi Prins — What Hormuz Shipping Data Says About the Months Ahead
The Strait of Hormuz is running at ~6% of pre-war traffic — and the contracted freight cash flow tells you the disruption tail is priced for months, not weeks.
One-line take: after the Iran war shut the Strait of Hormuz (Feb 28), traffic collapsed to ~6% of pre-war levels (191 vessels in all of April vs ~3,000/month before), war-risk insurance was withdrawn and VLCC freight rates exploded — the Mideast Gulf-to-China index (TD3C) hit ~$407k/day vs a ~$20k/day breakeven, and charterers locked one-year deals above $130k/day rather than wait for spot to fall. Prins's read: the reopening will be slow and partial (six months just to clear Iranian mines), so the cash flow is already contracted — and the owners of compliant VLCCs capture the upside. Note: this is the free/public teaser; the specific U.S.-listed VLCC owner pick is reserved for the May Founders+ issue (next page), so no single buy recommendation is captured here.
1. Stocks & names mentioned
A top-down tanker-freight thesis; the only individually named security in the free portion is DHT (cited as a freight-rate data point), alongside oil/Brent as the underlying commodity. Her actual VLCC pick is paywalled. "View" reflects how each was framed. The "At" link opens the article. Research: QT Qualtrim · SA Seeking Alpha · STK Stock Analysis.
| Ticker | Name | Research | View | What she said | At |
|---|
| DHT | DHT Holdings | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | A pure-play VLCC owner cited as evidence of record charter pricing — fixed its Redwood at $105,000/day in February; the kind of compliant-tanker owner that returns spot earnings as dividends and captures the Hormuz dislocation. | read |
| Crude oil (Brent) | Crude oil | — | Neutral | Brent trading ~$100-110/bbl as Hormuz flows fell from ~20 Mbbl/d to ~2 Mbbl/d; the oil still exists — what's scarce is the ability to move it on time and securely, which is what the freight market is pricing. | read |
"View" reflects how each name was framed in this article (Positive = a beneficiary of the freight squeeze; Neutral = a macro/commodity data point), not a price rating. Built from the article's free/public portion; Prins's specific VLCC recommendation is reserved for the May Founders+ issue. Research: QT Qualtrim · SA Seeking Alpha · STK Stock Analysis.
2. Key points
The strait is effectively closed
- Pre-war ~130 vessels/day (~3,000/month) transited Hormuz, carrying a fifth of the world's traded oil daily. In April only 191 vessels transited the entire month — ~6% of normal — routed through Iranian territorial waters past Larak Island.
- Iran's IRGC now issues "passes" by national flag and alignment (China, Russia, India, Iraq, Pakistan, later Malaysia/Thailand); U.S., UK, Israeli and Western-allied flags are denied. A new Persian Gulf Strait Authority requires a 40-question declaration and charges up to $2M/ship, payable in yuan.
Where the squeeze hits hardest
- China's Hormuz crude imports fell ~95% (4.45 Mbbl/d → ~222k bbl/d in April); India fell from 2.8 Mbbl/d to ~247k. Both are now competing for Russian crude. China's largest single-site refinery (ZPC) pulled forward Q2 maintenance to March because Saudi term barrels weren't arriving.
- Iranian floating storage sits at ~65-75 million barrels with nowhere to deliver; ~1,000 ships in a holding pattern. War-risk cover was withdrawn by P&I clubs in early March; Lloyd's hull war premiums are ~8x pre-war, multiples of that for Western-linked vessels.
Reopening will be slow and fragile
- Trump's "Project Freedom" naval escort lasted 48 hours (May 3-6); only two ships got through before three U.S. destroyers came under Iranian fire May 7. Even with a deal, the U.S. says clearing Iranian mines takes six months, and the IEA expects exports to need at least two more months to stabilize.
- The compliant-VLCC fleet was already small and aging (~20% are 20+ years old); effective fleet growth is projected below 3% over three years — so capacity can't ramp into the dislocation.
The cash flow is already contracted
- Baltic TD3C (Mideast Gulf→China VLCC) hit ~$407,437/day TCE (May 1) vs a 2025 average of ~$133,000 and an industry breakeven near $20,000. Charterers locked one-year time charters at record levels — DHT fixed Redwood at $105k/day; one-year rates topped $130k/day in early March.
- Those locked-in rates say the major oil traders don't expect normalization within 12 months. The owners of compliant tankers capture the upside, and a small listed subset returns that cash as dividends — the angle Prins develops in the (paywalled) Founders+ pick.
3. In plain English
A jargon-free summary of why each name is in the piece. (Plain-language companion to the table above; renders on each ticker's consolidated page.)
DHT — DHT Holdings Positive
DHT owns very large crude carriers (VLCCs) — the giant tankers that haul oil across oceans. With the Strait of Hormuz half-shut by the Iran war, there aren't enough compliant tankers to move the world's oil, so the rate to hire one has rocketed: DHT locked in one of its ships, the Redwood, at $105,000 a day when the cost to run it is closer to $20,000. Prins isn't formally rating DHT here; she uses it to show that tanker owners are booking enormous, contracted profits that will keep flowing for many months even after the strait reopens. The owners of these ships, especially the few that pay the cash out as dividends, are the quiet winners of the chaos.
Summary derived from the public (free) portion of the Prinsights Substack article for personal study. Not investment advice; the author's specific recommendation is paywalled. © Nomi Prins / Prinsights for source material.