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Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has been at a near-standstill for weeks amid the Iran war, sending prices of oil and other key goods soaring.
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There has been an almost daily back and forth over whether the strait is open or closed, blockaded or not. This week, President Donald Trump said that U.S. forces had seized an Iranian-flagged ship in the Gulf of Oman after the ship allegedly ignored orders to stop.
NBC News is tracking the daily count of how many ships pass through the strait. Note that exact numbers may be higher; some ships manipulate their GPS trackers during transit.
Iran launched strikes on ships and demanded tolls from vessels transiting the crucial waterway in the wake of the U.S.-Israeli attack on Feb. 28. This effectively shuttered a trade route through which some 20% of the world’s oil and natural gas once passed. Tehran has also suggested it may have mined the strait. Iranian media has published a map from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy suggesting safe inbound and outbound routes through the strait.
Gas prices in the U.S. spiked in March as a result of the war, increasing more than 30% and topping an average of $4 per gallon. Prices in April, after declining, are ticking back up.
Jiachuan Wu is a senior interactive journalist for NBC News Digital.
Max Burman is deputy editor in the London bureau of NBC News Digital.
Joe Murphy is a data editor at NBC News.
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