October has become the worst month on record for attacks on commercial ships in and around the Strait of Hormuz since the war with Iran began, Reuters reported Friday, October 23. Noam Raydan, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, counted 28 confirmed and reported attacks so far this month and 113 since the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran began on February 28.
The International Maritime Organization has logged 120 incidents in the strait and the wider Middle East since the conflict started, according to Reuters. More than 30 very large crude carriers, each able to carry about 2 million barrels of oil, have been damaged, 11 of them in October.
Who is firing
Raydan told Reuters that Iran is stepping up attacks to slow the recovery in shipments and keep pressure on energy markets ahead of the U.S. midterm elections on November 3. Reuters had earlier reported, citing two senior Iranian officials, that Tehran was adopting such tactics. The Reuters report included no response from the Iranian or U.S. governments.
The United States is applying pressure of its own. U.S. Central Command continues to enforce its blockade of Iranian ports and has redirected 130 merchant vessels, Lloyd's List Intelligence reported on October 8. The same brief counted at least 13 attacks on tankers or gas carriers since September 28.
Iran's commanders have been defiant in public. Gen. Ali Abdollahi, chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, said Iran "will not allow U.S. warships to enter the Persian Gulf or approach Iran's territorial waters" and warned that U.S. forces would never return to the strait, Fortune reported, citing the state-run IRNA news agency.
Why ships keep coming
The attacks have not stopped the traffic. Greece-based consultancy Marisks counted a dozen ships attacked between October 5 and 11, the highest weekly total of the war, and called October "the most intense period of maritime attacks in and around the Strait of Hormuz" since hostilities escalated in March. Even so, shipowners have grown more willing to load cargo inside the Gulf, Reuters reported, drawn by daily freight rates above $1 million and steeper discounts from regional producers.
Lloyd's List Intelligence counted at least 477 transits by ships not linked to Iran in September, the most since the war began. Much of the oil moves through a ship-to-ship transfer network in the Gulf of Oman, and growing congestion there is pushing some charterers toward faster routes, the brief said.
The British maritime security service UKMTO had recorded 135 incidents related to the conflict as of October 16, and said it struggles to capture the full picture because ship operators report voluntarily, according to Reuters.
The stakes
Before the war, about 20 million barrels of oil a day, roughly a fifth of seaborne oil trade, moved through the strait, according to Wikipedia's account of the crisis. Iran declared the strait closed on March 4, and the U.S. Navy began blockading Iranian ports on April 13.
Markets felt it quickly. Brent crude passed $100 a barrel on March 8 for the first time in four years and later peaked at $126.
Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh argued over what the strait means for American interests on Episode 65, which we wrote up in our story on that debate.
Two Taps News stories summarize reporting and the analysis discussed on Two Taps and Friends. They are not legal advice. Read our standards.
