Chokepoint Report — week of 31 August 2026
Vessel movements through the world's maritime chokepoints, 31 August to 6 September 2026. Every transit below was detected from live AIS positions and screened against OFAC, EU, UN and UK sanctions lists.
6,007 transits recorded across 10 chokepoints. 78 involved a vessel on a sanctions list.
Traffic by chokepoint
| Chokepoint | Transits | Vessels | vs last week |
|---|---|---|---|
| English Channel | 2,107 | 1,224 | -36% |
| Strait of Malacca | 1,341 | 1,210 | -20% |
| Turkish Straits | 978 | 723 | -24% |
| Danish Straits | 617 | 520 | -47% |
| Cape of Good Hope | 354 | 322 | -49% |
| Suez Canal | 256 | 244 | -19% |
| Strait of Hormuz | 170 | 122 | -33% |
| Panama Canal | 142 | 113 | -15% |
| US Gulf | 28 | 27 | — |
| Bab el-Mandeb | 14 | 14 | — |
No week-on-week figure is shown for US Gulf, Bab el-Mandeb — weekly volumes there are too small for a percentage change to mean anything.
Sanctioned vessels
| Chokepoint | Transits | Distinct vessels |
|---|---|---|
| Suez Canal | 25 | 25 |
| Strait of Malacca | 13 | 13 |
| English Channel | 13 | 11 |
| Strait of Hormuz | 11 | 6 |
| Turkish Straits | 9 | 9 |
| Danish Straits | 6 | 6 |
| Cape of Good Hope | 1 | 1 |
Direction of travel
Through the English Channel: 1,059 northbound, 1,048 southbound.
AIS gaps
55 voyage legs from 55 vessels included a period with no AIS signal. A gap is not itself evidence of wrongdoing — coverage is imperfect and transponders fail — but it is the pattern sanctions-evading operators use, and it is why we track it.
Cargo movements
Draught changes indicating 668 discharged, 658 loaded, inferred from AIS-reported draught against each vessel's laden and ballast baseline.
Method: transits are detected by tracking vessels across zone boundaries in live AIS data. Sanctions status is matched on IMO and MMSI against the published lists and refreshed daily. Figures are what we observed; AIS coverage is not complete, so treat them as a floor rather than a census.