LONDON, May 21 (Reuters) - A Chinese-operated container ship was among the few to cross the Strait of Hormuz in the past 24 hours, data showed on Thursday, as uncertainty grows around reopening the critical waterway with talks over a deal between the U.S. and Iran deadlocked.
Before the war on Iran began on February 28, shipping traffic through the strait averaged 125 to 140 daily passages. Due to the conflict, 20,000 seafarers remain stranded inside the Gulf on board hundreds of ships.
Shipping traffic has averaged 10 vessels going into and out of the strait in recent days and has included cargo vessels and other ships such as chemical and liquefied petroleum tankers, with crude oil tankers still representing a small proportion of the total volume, according to Reuters analysis based on ship tracking data.
The Chinese-flagged small container ship Zhong Gu Nan Chang crossed the strait in the past 24 hours, according to satellite analysis from data analytics specialists SynMax.
Most of the 10 other vessels making voyages were dry bulk and container ships coming into the Gulf with only one Iran-linked tanker crossing into the Gulf of Oman, SynMax analysis and separate Kpler data showed on Thursday.
A shaky ceasefire is in place but there has been no big breakthrough in peace efforts, with a U.S. blockade of Iranian ports and Tehran's grip on the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global oil supply route, complicating negotiations mediated by Pakistan.
"We’ve been disappointed before," ship broker Fearnleys said in a report this week, referring to indications that there could be movement towards a deal.
"We need the waterways to open, that’s for sure, both for the shipping industry and no less so for the world economy. In the meantime, it’s more of the same in the market."
(Reporting by Jonathan Saul; Editing by Chiara Rodriquez)
