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Hormuz oil shipments at prewar levels but fuel traffic still uneven
Partial recovery
The report’s main takeaway is that some measures of traffic have already rebounded, especially crude flows. Yet the article also noted that fuel-related movement and broader shipping patterns were still not fully settled.
So the answer depends on what “normal” means. If the question is about crude, the route looked close to normal by late September; if it means overall commercial traffic, recovery was still incomplete.
Mixed traffic
This split matters because the Strait of Hormuz is not one market but many cargo streams moving under different risk calculations. Oil can normalize faster than other shipments if producers and buyers prioritize moving barrels.
That means a headline claim of “back to normal” can be misleading. The data show a staggered recovery rather than a single recovery date.
Next phase
The late-September picture also weakens the case for an imminent full reset. Even with crude back near baseline, other categories were still adjusting and security perceptions were still shaping behavior.
The practical conclusion is that normalization was happening in layers, not all at once. Full traffic normalization still appeared to be a moving target rather than a fixed month.
