(Oil Price) – Kpler estimates Middle East crude and condensate exports averaged roughly 16.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in September and exceeded the pre-war average of 18 million bpd on several days during the final week of the month.That recovery has done surprisingly little to bring oil prices back down, as we noted earlier this week. Producers are moving more crude through alternative pipelines and ports, while tankers moving through Hormuz increasingly rely on U.S. military escorts and vessel-intensive chains of ship-to-ship (STS) transfers. Brent crude is still trading around $100 per barrel, nearly $30 per barrel above its pre-war level. Iran could be quietly collecting tolls from ships transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, with exporters passing on these costs to consumers. According to Michelle Brohard, head of policy and geopolitical risk at Kpler, certain Gulf nations could have quietly struck deals with Iran to keep their oil flowing on fears that they cannot rely indefinitely on Washington to keep Tehran at bay.“I suspect there is a toll that’s being paid, which is giving these ships safe passage,” Brohard said in an interview with energy analyst Rory Johnston last week. “I also suspect that these countries know that this is unsustainable from a perspective of [the] US escorting [ships], and also unsustainable from them paying Iran 10 percent of their cargo, or 20 percent of their cargo. So you’re starting to see like what I would call like a race to get out as much as possible, as quickly as possible before the war restarts,” she added.Brohard’s claims remain unverified, although she is not the only analyst raising the possibility of undisclosed payments. “Everything appears to be happening under the radar in the Middle East, from the US convoying ships to Iran quietly charging tolls,” Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG Group, told Al Jazeera.The possibility of secret payments would carry serious consequences if confirmed. The Trump administration has warned Tehran against imposing tolls, while Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait have opposed Iranian demands for transit charges. Washington has also targeted the financial network connected to Iran’s Hormuz payment system. Last month, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Iranian cryptocurrency exchange BitBank, saying the Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority had used the exchange since June to transfer payments it received to the Iranian regime. Treasury said BitBank is controlled by Iranian financier Babak Zanjani, whose network used the exchange to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Zanjani was sentenced to death in Iran in 2016 for embezzling state oil funds, but his sentence was commuted in 2024 and he later re-emerged as a backer of regime-linked economic projects.Iran’s proposed tolls would also face a major legal challenge. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea(UNCLOS), ships and aircraft have a right of transit passage through straits used for international navigation, and bordering states are not generally permitted to impose charges simply for passage. Iran signed UNCLOS in 1982 but never ratified it and has long maintained that passage through its territorial waters is governed in part by its own maritime laws, including its 1993 Marine Areas Act. Tehran has nevertheless considered legislation to formalize charges on ships using Hormuz, arguing that a permanent fee for guaranteed safe passage should form part of any long-term agreement to fully reopen the strait.Iran’s proposed tolls would also face a major legal challenge. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea(UNCLOS), ships have a right of transit passage through straits used for international navigation, and bordering states generally cannot charge vessels simply for passing through. Iran signed UNCLOS in 1982 but never ratified it and has long maintained that passage through its territorial waters is also governed by its own maritime laws, including its 1993 Marine Areas Act. Tehran has considered legislation to formalize charges on vessels using Hormuz, arguing that fees for guaranteed safe passage should be part of any long-term agreement to fully reopen the strait.“The shuttle system in the Gulf is doing wonders in getting oil out, but it requires plenty of ships, and that has pushed freight rates higher while also reducing supply beyond the region itself,” Beauchamp told Al Jazeera.By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com