The US Central Command announced that it will blockade all Iranian ports beginning Monday at 10 a.m. EDT, or 5:30 p.m. in Iran.

CENTCOM said the blockade would be “enforced impartially against vessels of all nations” entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas. It would still allow ships traveling between non-Iranian ports to transit the Strait of Hormuz.

In its statement, CENTCOM said the blockade would include all Iranian ports, and it would give more information to commercial vessels before the start of the blockade

Earlier in the day, President Donald Trump said the US Navy would swiftly begin a blockade of ships entering or leaving the Strait of Hormuz, after US-Iran ceasefire talks in Pakistan ended without an agreement.

Ships Have Stopped Moving Through the Strait of Hormuz
Lloyd’s List Intelligence wrote Sunday that “all traffic” through the Strait of Hormuz stopped after President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that the United States would blockade the waterway. It said two vessels that were leaving the strait turned around after the post.

A trickle of traffic had returned to the strait in the days since the US and Iran agreed to pause the conflict.

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has called for the Strait of Hormuz to be open and said the United States had not requested Australian help to blockade it.

“We’ve received no requests, and they’ve made this announcement overnight and they’ve done that in a unilateral way. And we haven’t been asked to participate,” Albanese told Nine Network television on Monday. 

“What we want to see is negotiations continue and resume. We want to see an end to this conflict. We want to see the Strait of Hormuz opened for all. We want to see freedom of navigation as required by international law as well,” Albanese added.

The US military’s logistical plans for blockading the Strait of Hormuz appeared to have been scaled down from the sweeping measures President Donald Trump had earlier threatened.

Trump originally wrote on Truth Social that the U.S. would blockade “any and all” ships exiting or entering the Strait of Hormuz. The military, however, says it will still permit passage of ships headed between non-Iranian ports.

Iran Keeping 21 Million Barrels of Oil in Floating Storage
Samir Madani, the co-founder of Tankertrackers.com, said the monitoring group used imagery from the European Space Agency’s Copernicus-2 satellite to identify the types of Iranian oil tankers present in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend.

They identified 10 “Very Large Crude Carrier” supertankers -- which can hold 2 million barrels of oil each -- and 1 Suezmax tanker -- which holds 1 million barrels -- in the Gulf of Oman as of Sunday, adding up to 21 million barrels.

Iran could be keeping the oil in floating storage to “better regulate exports amid turbulence,” or in case of disturbances at Kharg Island, the group said on X.

Kharg Island, which the US struck during the war, is home to a terminal through which Iran exports most of its oil.

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