Oil Tanker Appears to Halt in Hormuz After Iran Targets Vessels
(Bloomberg) -- An oil tanker appears to have halted in the Strait of Hormuz off Oman after the Iranian Navy again targeted vessels in the waterway, raising concerns about deepening disruptions as Middle East hostilities escalate.
The Kavomaleas, a products tanker, started signaling early Monday near the tip of the Musandam Peninsula, indicating that it’s anchored and empty. The previous broadcast from the vessel was in the Gulf of Oman early Sunday, suggesting the ship had initially had been transiting through the strait into the Gulf with its transponder turned off — a tactic to avoid detection.
A few hours before the re-appearance of Kavomaleas, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps issued a statement that four vessels had attempted to transit the narrow waterway via an “unsafe route” after disregarding warnings. The ships had switched off their transponders, and two were “met with accidents and were stopped in their tracks,” Iranian media reported, citing the IRGC.
The UK Maritime Trade Operations said it had received information from military authorities that a vessel is on fire northwest of Kumzar, Oman, adding that the cause of the blaze has not been verified. The group didn’t name the ship, but the location mentioned in its alert was close to Kavomaleas’s location.
Greece’s Dynacom Tankers Management manages Kavomaleas, and fixtures seen by Bloomberg show it was chartered to pick up a cargo in the Gulf over the weekend. The company didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment sent outside of business hours. Dynacom was among the first shipowners to get tankers out of the gulf with their transponders off.
Visible traffic through Hormuz appeared at a near standstill early Monday after a weekend of escalating hostilities between the US and Iran. The vessel attacks will likely raise fresh concerns over the safety of ships transiting the waterway while hugging the Omani coast — often with their transponders switched off, known as going dark, and at times with the support of the US military.
A Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier is among the few ships that appeared to be attempting to transit Hormuz on Monday, exiting the Gulf after going dark while approaching the strait near Oman. A liquefied petroleum gas carrier that’s been marked as being part of the dark fleet involved in Iranian exports also appeared to be approaching the strait.
Another bulk carrier that’s registered with Marshall Islands began signaling from the Gulf of Oman after indicating that it was in the Gulf early Sunday, suggesting that it had crossed Hormuz dark.
Oil traders and shipping executives have been monitoring whether vessels are getting through Hormuz along the Iran-approved corridor further to the north, which would expose charterers and shipowners to compliance risks, or the Omani route to the south.
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