India expanded the pool of approved Russian providers, alleviating the shortage of insurers to provide the liability coverage tankers carrying Russian oil need to legally enter its ports.

The company said the announcement signals a capacity decrease of less than 1% in available seat kilometers.

Around 800 ships remain stuck in the Persian Gulf after traffic through the Strait of Hormuz slowed to a trickle following the outbreak of the war. 

The new "economic security zone" — described as the first of its kind — will be used as the first node in a larger global industrial network.

The U.S. is apparently continuing its naval blockade on ships accessing Iran.

Tehran again shut the waterway following a refusal by the U.S. to lift its own naval blockade of Iran’s vessels.

“Would you be the first penguin off the ice floe to test the water?” one shipowner asked.

Hormuz is “open and ready for business,” Trump said on Truth Social on April 17.

The $4 million payment was up from the less than $1 million that some vessels were paying to cut in line at the Panama Canal as recently as early March.

With few signs that the Strait of Hormuz will be fully open to tankers anytime soon, islands in the Pacific face a deepening crisis with no end in sight.