SINGAPORE: A ​total of 17 commodity vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz on the weekend, down from 37 a week earlier, shipping data showed on Monday, as tension in the Gulf persisted with the US and Iran in stalemate.

Visible traffic through the strait, the conduit for a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas before the war, has dwindled to a trickle. However, Middle Eastern producers continue to export oil on tankers traveling with their transponders off.

Among trackable ships, five vessels exited the strait on Sunday, while ‌another two ‌small-sized oil tankers entered the Gulf, provisional data from analytics ​firm Kpler showed as of 0706 ⁠GMT.

Among trackable ships, five vessels exited the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, while another two small-sized oil tankers entered the Gulf, provisional data from analytics firm Kpler showed.

The vessels that exited were the very large crude carrier Pinios, two tankers carrying refined oil products, and two empty carriers for bulk goods and gas.

The Pinios was on Monday transferring 2 million barrels of Iraqi Basrah crude oil off Fujairah to another VLCC, New Constant, which is expected to head to China, Kpler and LSEG data showed.

Dynacom, which manages the Pinios, and Associated ⁠Maritime Co. HK Ltd, manager of New Constant, did not immediately ‌respond to requests for comment.

On Saturday, eight vessels, including ‌a supertanker, left the Gulf carrying crude, agricultural and ​petroleum products, liquefied natural gas, liquefied petroleum ‌gas and fertilizer, while a very large gas carrier and a VLCC entered, the ‌data showed.

The Shandong Redwood LNG tanker, carrying a cargo loaded from Qatar’s Ras Laffan port, exited the Hormuz Strait on Sept. 19 and is heading to Pakistan, data from Kpler and LSEG showed.

Its manager Shandong Marine Energy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Before the US-Israeli war with Iran started on Feb. 28, the Hormuz Strait typically handled about 125 large commercial vessels per day, including tankers, gas carriers, bulkers, and container vessels.

A total of 22 tankers, mostly VLCCs, carrying 42 million barrels of crude, exited the Hormuz Strait in the week of September 13, Kpler data showed.

At the Bab Al-Mandab Strait at the southern end of the Red Sea, 51 vessels crossed, with 33 exiting the strait over the weekend, including an Aframax-sized tanker carrying about 700,000 barrels of Saudi crude, Kpler data showed.

That was down from 57 vessels ​in the previous weekend.