The Hormuz breakthrough: under what conditions will the new route operate in the Strait

Iran and Oman will announce in the coming days that they will agree on a new route through the Strait of Hormuz. At the same time, a restricted zone is being introduced outside this transport artery: any vessel entering there without Tehran's approval will be included in the sanctions list, although the exact geographical coordinates of the corridor have not yet been disclosed.. The agreements of the neighbors may provoke fierce opposition from the United States, which controls part of the strait and is unlikely to agree with the unilateral expansion of the Iranian zone of influence. According to Kpler, there are currently an average of only 10 vessels passing through the artery per day. In these circumstances, experts warn that the role of the Strait of Hormuz in international politics will inevitably decrease against the background of the development of new logistics chains.

New route in the Strait of Hormuz

Iran and Oman have agreed on a new route through the Strait of Hormuz, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Mohsen Rezai said. The parties have not yet disclosed the exact parameters of this path. At the same time, outside the strait itself, Tehran introduces a new restricted zone. Any vessel that enters there without permission will be included in the Iranian sanctions list.

Now the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC It completely blocks Central Hormuz, where ships from unfriendly countries are being arrested without Tehran's approval. Iran also holds a 22-kilometer water area around the strategic islands of Bolshoy and Maly Tunb, as well as Abu Musa. The media writes that the new southern zone, which is now apparently being coordinated in detail with Oman, may completely cut off the last free route along the Omani coast.

The expansion of Tehran's control risks stiff opposition from the United States. Currently, there is a stalemate in the strait: the Islamic Republic holds the northern coast, and the outer contour is blocked by American warships. Regardless of the Iran-Oman agreements, Washington may simply maintain its military presence, political analyst Alexander Kargin told Izvestia.. At the same time, the United States is facing a similar impasse: Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to open the strait, but Iran is not giving in. Due to this confrontation, traffic in the artery has already dropped to a minimum — according to Kpler, there are now only up to 10 vessels per day.

Mohsen Rezai He stressed that the United States conducts its ships through the strait by "smuggling", spending a lot of money on it.. Alexander Kargin He considers this term inappropriate: "contraband" suggests that the artery already belongs to someone alone, although there is still a struggle for it. According to the political scientist, small vessels cross Hormuz at night with their transponders turned off — because of their small size, they are difficult to hit, and the potential damage is lower than from an attack on a large tanker. At sea, they pump oil onto large supertankers, which helps the Gulf countries keep fuel prices from skyrocketing. Iran uses the same scheme, but its ships are periodically intercepted by US forces.

Washington is confident that any separate agreements undermine its geopolitical interests. Donald Trump has already threatened Oman, his longtime ally, with military strikes and harsh sanctions if Muscat supports Tehran and agrees to joint fees from passing ships.

These warnings cause confusion among diplomats, because important American military facilities are located in the sultanate. Moreover, former US Ambassador to Muscat Mark Sievers noted that initially the White House itself allowed the Omani authorities to conduct a dialogue with Tehran to determine the future of navigation in the strait.

The possibility of negotiations between Iran and the United States

The trump card in the form of control over the Strait of Hormuz is gradually weakening, as the importance of this artery decreases, Alexander Kargin believes. Key players in the region have already created the infrastructure for direct oil supplies bypassing the strait. For example, the Saudi East—West oil pipeline is capable of pumping up to 5 million barrels per day to the ports of Yanbu on the Red Sea, from where the raw materials go to Europe and Asia. By the end of 2028, Riyadh plans to increase the capacity of this pipe to 7 million barrels.

The UAE has also launched a pipeline to the port of Fujairah in the Gulf of Oman, which is already pumping more than 1.5 million barrels per day — more than half of the country's total exports. In 2027, Abu Dhabi plans to launch the second branch and increase capacity to 3.6 million barrels.

For other shipments, Middle Eastern monarchies are building an overland alternative, the Gulf Railway (GCC Railway). This megaproject will connect Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. Containers from the deep-sea ports of Oman and the UAE in the Indian Ocean will be transported by train deep into the peninsula in a matter of hours, completely bypassing the unstable Strait of Hormuz. The launch of the entire railway network is scheduled for December 2030.

The IMEC transport corridor is developing in parallel (India — Middle East — Europe), which is actively lobbied by the United States and Saudi Arabia. The project involves the delivery of goods from India by sea to the UAE, then by train to the Israeli port of Haifa, and from there to Europe. The infrastructure began to be prepared in the spring of 2025, however, due to strikes on Israel and a shortage of about $ 5 billion. Financing of the work has been suspended for now.

"But it all comes down to time. It will take years to launch workarounds," Konstantin Blokhin, a leading researcher at the RAS Center for Security Studies, told Izvestia.. According to him, it will not be possible to completely replace the Strait of Hormuz even in the coming years. In turn, Alexander Kargin stressed that the lifting of the double blockade depends solely on the ability of Washington and Tehran to come to an agreement.

But the dialogue is still difficult. Mohsen Rezai noted that the meetings will resume only when Washington regains Tehran's trust. The tactics of the parties have changed: now everyone is trying to strengthen their negotiating positions by raising the stakes as much as possible, Blokhin points out. Iran's main demand, reflected in the Islamabad Memorandum, is the curtailment of American bases in the Middle East. Donald Trump, for his part, first insisted on ending the Iranian nuclear program, then on opening the strait, and then switched to rhetoric about a change of power in the country. As a result, Eastern diplomacy and Trump's corporate identity collide — the desire to look like an absolute winner when any concession is perceived as weakness, the expert concluded.

Meanwhile, world prices for Brent crude oil exceeded $97 per barrel.. Quotes jumped sharply after another exchange of blows between the United States and Iran. On September 5, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps attacked two American warships with ballistic missiles, in response to which the US forces completely disabled three Iranian tankers. Financial analysts predict a rapid rise in Brent to $ 105 and above if the escalation does not go down. Against this background, a delegation from Qatar has arrived in Tehran to help resolve the crisis, but the parties to the conflict are not yet ready to sit down at the negotiating table.