"Some of the bigger players are not likely to come in this week or next week," Wright said, especially in the oil tanker market. "We call them the 'watch and wait' cohort."

Freight costs still high

Shipping economics have also made the situation difficult for companies looking to move their cargo in and out of the Persian Gulf.

As the US and Israel began airstrikes on Iran in late February, prompting a widespread response from the Iranian military throughout the Gulf region, freight prices — the price to transport a vessel from one port to another — shot up, and have not yet begun to ease much off their highs. Yet, the price of the energy products they transport has fallen significantly, compressing the margins a ship owner could typically get on their cargoes.

Prior to the war, the cost of shipping crude from the Middle East to China on a VLCC, the largest class of oil tanker, amounted to roughly 2% of the value of a barrel of Murban crude, Abu Dhabi's benchmark oil grade.

That figure has since surged to about 19%, according to data from Kpler, adding significant pressure to shipping lines already facing a slew of complications in the Middle East.

High freight rates and falling crude prices have pushed VLCC freight to 19% of the value of Murban crude at the end of last week. That exceeds the previous record of 17% set at the start of the conflict. Kpler

Tolls charged by Iran for safe passage would add another layer of costs on top for shipowners. While no such system has been officially implemented, Iranian officials have previously said tolls would be necessary, and Oman — which sits on the strait's southwestern coastline — has announced discussions with Iran about joint administration of the waterway.

"Even if the immediate outcome is continued safe passage, the fact that fees, administration or new maritime rules are being discussed could increase the perceived political and insurance risk around the corridor," Jorge León, head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy, told Yahoo Finance.

President Trump said Wednesday that Iran has guaranteed to the US that there will be no tolls, insurance fees, or other costs levied against vessels making the crossing, writing on social media that "if this is false information, negotiations would end, immediately."

pic.twitter.com/rI8MJAHkFE

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) June 24, 2026

'Fundamentally lower' levels of oil

To be sure, some of the move back toward pre-war conditions may be in Iran's interest. The country currently has incentive to keep the waterway unencumbered, said Rystad Energy's León.

On Tuesday, the US Treasury Department issued a 60-day waiver on sales of Iranian oil, removing a set of sanctions that forced Iran to sell its oil — the dominant funding source for the regime — at a steep discount to global benchmark prices.

And unlike in the years following the 2023 and 2024 attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea by Houthi rebels, which prompted shipping lines to reroute around the Horn of Africa, there's no alternative route out of the Persian Gulf.

That said, Gulf countries have already started looking for alternatives.

Saudi Arabia has upped the amount of oil it sends through the East-West pipeline to the Red Sea from roughly 2 million barrels per day before the war to more than 5 million bpd now. The UAE is expediting financing and construction on a new pipeline that would run parallel to its existing Habashan-Fujairah pipeline.

"Once a country uses a point of leverage, the rest of the world starts adapting to reduce exposure to that leverage," León said. "If Iran has shown that Hormuz can be weaponized, exporting countries will have a stronger incentive to expand bypass infrastructure, while consuming countries will look harder at diversification of supply."

With that oil rerouted, "we will just have fundamentally lower levels" going through the Hormuz Strait, Wright said.

Shipping economics make it difficult for companies looking to move their cargo in and out of the Persian Gulf to use the Strait of Hormuz, even as the US says the waterway is open for business. (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images). STR via Getty Images

Experts are split over whether the Persian Gulf's export machine will ever fully renormalize to pre-war levels. The critical waterway has never before been impeded, even through the tanker wars of the 1980s.

That Iran has now proven its willingness and ability to shutter traffic has not only applied a geopolitical risk premium to the price of any goods from the region, per Rystad's León, but it has fundamentally altered the calculus for both shippers looking at where to move cargo, and importers considering where to purchase their oil.

The likelihood of any given ship making the crossing is likely to depend on a number of factors, experts said, from which country's flag it flies to how its insurers feel about the movement. Getting a sense of the new normal, and how shipowners and captains react to those conditions, is likely to take several months.

"Essentially, you've got a clock, and every time there's an incident, it goes back," Kpler's Wright said. "It might not go back to zero, but it goes back a little bit, and you've got to rebuild confidence again from the beginning."

Jake Conley is a breaking news reporter covering US equities for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on X at @byjakeconley or email him at jake.conley@yahooinc.com.

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