Kpler said the Islamabad memorandum’s 60-day window expired on Aug. 17 with no
deal, extension or ongoing talks; Tehran is pushing for a licensing-and-fees
regime for the strait and Washington has rejected it. The memorandum boosted
flows but did not restore normal transit. During the window roughly 374 mln
barrels were cleared from the Middle East Gulf, averaging about 6.1 mln bpd; by
contrast outbound volumes from April to the memorandum’s signing averaged about
2.3 mln bpd. Kpler defines cleared volume as non-Iran Strait of Hormuz transits
plus Gulf of Oman net exports to avoid double counting. Even at the peak,
exports equaled only about 40% of a 2025 Strait of Hormuz average of roughly 15
mln bpd; more than half of the window’s flows occurred in the first three weeks
after the memorandum took effect, and flows had become sporadic, harder to track
and re-accumulating behind the chokepoint by the window’s end.
