It's one of dozens of such exits from the Persian Gulf as the state-run producer embarks on a novel marketing drive. Individual ships spotted on ship-tracking databases give clues about the trade, but the real number is likely larger due to these dark crossings. That's equivalent to more than a month of crude demand from Japan, Asia's third-largest consumer. The UAE has been so successful in getting its crude out of the Persian Gulf that Vortexa estimates it was the only Middle Eastern producer to reach pre-war levels of seaborne exports in June and July. The practice of shuttling barrels out of the gulf — dark crossings that supply waiting vessels outside Hormuz — has picked up again after those strikes, people familiar with the matter said last week.