A tanker captain can now make $100,000 a month to sail through the Strait of Hormuz. Add a $50,000 bonus for each trip. That is the price of getting oil out of the Gulf while Iran keeps attacking ships.

And people are still taking the job.

The Financial Times reported that captains transiting the strait can earn that much, plus the per-trip bonus. Regular captain pay was about $15,000 a month. The danger money is what keeps crews willing to go.

For ordinary sailors, the numbers are different. Many make at least $1,500 a month. A Hormuz run can raise their pay by four to six times their normal rate. That sounds like a windfall until you remember what they are sailing into.

The water is narrow. The risk is not.

The Strait of Hormuz sits between Iran and Oman. It is one of the busiest oil routes in the world. Tankers still move through it, even with Iranian attacks continuing.

Since the Iran war began on February 28, at least 93 ships have been hit. Twenty-four sailors have been killed, according to the International Maritime Organization. Those are not abstract shipping figures. They are people who left home for a job at sea.

I keep thinking about the gap between the captain’s paycheck and the deckhand’s. A captain may get $100,000 a month. A sailor may start at $1,500. Both are on the same ship. Both are in the same water when something comes at them.

One source told the Financial Times that crews are “almost being viewed as mercenaries.” That phrase sticks. It is an observation from reporting, not a confirmed policy, but it says something about how the industry has started treating risk: pay enough, and someone will go.

The bill for moving oil

The cost does not stop with wages. Freight rates for cargo crossing Hormuz hit a record $1.3 million per day. Last year, the daily rate was roughly $20,000 to $50,000.

War-risk insurance has jumped too. It can run 6% to 10% of a ship’s value. For a supertanker, that can mean up to $20 million for a voyage into the Gulf.

Hiring a tanker to carry crude from the United States to China now costs about $80 million. That is the kind of number that used to belong in a bad joke about shipping. Now it is a business cost.

There is a detour here, and it comes back fast. Some ships are using ship-to-ship transfers near Hormuz and in the Gulf of Oman to keep oil moving. That work ties up vessels for longer, shrinks the available fleet, and pushes rates higher elsewhere. The Red Sea is already a problem route. Hormuz is now another.

Someone pays at the pump

Repsol, the European refiner, saw its margin fall from $36 per barrel in the third quarter to $15 in October, according to RBC analysts. That is the squeeze when freight, insurance, and risk all rise at once.

So the money moves down the line. Shipowners pay crews and insurers. Traders pay charter rates. Refiners absorb thinner margins. Eventually, consumers see higher prices, though the exact pass-through depends on fuel markets, taxes, and local supply.

But the human part is harder to price.

A $50,000 bonus is real money. So is four to six times normal pay. For a sailor supporting a family, that offer may not feel like a choice at all. It may feel like the only sensible answer to a question nobody should have to ask: How much is one crossing worth?

The warning nobody wants

Esfandyar Batmanghelidj warned that “Iran may yet do a scorched earth campaign.” That is an analyst’s warning, not a confirmed plan. Still, it points at the fear underneath the freight charts: that the attacks could get worse, not better.

The ships keep going. Oil keeps leaving the Gulf. The world keeps buying it, because it has to.

And then there is the quiet part. Twenty-four sailors are dead. Ninety-three ships have been hit. The people making those crossings are being paid like their lives are part of the cargo schedule.

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Maybe they are.