Geopolitics Oct 11, 2026 · 8 min read

Hormuz attacks reach the anchorages

Tankers are now being hit at anchor, not just in the strait. Two outbound tankers were hit by projectiles in the Strait of Hormuz on 10 and 11 October, according to UKMTO, the UK’s maritime incident-reporting centre. On 11 October the tanker Petro Dolphin came under drone attack at Oman’s Sohar anchorage. Two of its 11 Indian crew are missing. Our view: the Gulf of Oman is no longer a safe waiting room. Kpler counted just seven commodity ships through Hormuz on 6 October, against about 125 a day before the war. Iran called the US reply to its terms “insufficient”. Our call: carriers will price Sohar and Fujairah calls like Gulf calls within six weeks.

Hormuz attacks reach the anchorages: the Gulf of Oman is no longer the safe side
Four tankers were hit by projectiles or drones in and around the Strait of Hormuz in three days, from Friday 9 to Sunday 11 October. At least two of them were sitting at anchor. Two seafarers are missing.
The details come from UKMTO, the UK’s maritime incident-reporting centre for the region, as reported by gCaptain. On Saturday 10 October at about 1920 UTC, an outbound tanker was hit on its port side by an unknown projectile inside the strait and caught fire. The crew was reported safe. On Sunday 11 October, a second outbound tanker was hit on its port side and damaged. All crew were safe and no pollution was reported. UKMTO named neither ship and blamed no one.
Two days earlier, on Friday 9 October, the Panama-flagged crude carrier GEM NO.2 was hit while anchored about 13 nautical miles west of Al Jazeera in the UAE. Its fire was put out. Two days before that, a tanker was hit by several projectiles off Qatar.
Then, on Sunday, a drone hit the Nicaragua-flagged tanker Petro Dolphin at Sohar anchorage in Oman. Sohar sits on the Gulf of Oman, outside the strait. India’s shipping minister, Sarbananda Sonowal, said on X that the ship carried 11 Indian seafarers. He wrote that “nine of our Indian crew members have been successfully rescued and are safe”. Two remain missing. “Search-and-rescue operations are actively underway by the local Coast Guard.”

What we think it means

Our view is simple. The Gulf of Oman is no longer the safe side of the strait.
For months, Sohar, Fujairah and the UAE’s east-coast anchorages have been the workaround. Ships waited there. Cargo was trucked in from there. Ship-to-ship transfers happened there. That buffer is now inside the attack zone. A ship does not need to enter Hormuz to be hit any more. It only needs to be waiting nearby.
That matters more to forwarders than another strike inside the strait. Inside the strait, most container lines had already priced in the risk or stopped calling. The anchorages and the ports outside it were where the cheaper, slower, safer options lived. Those options are now getting more expensive and less safe.
We also think the blockade side of the war is being underrated. The danger is no longer only Iranian drones. It is also US jets.

Both sides are now firing on merchant ships

On Saturday 10 October, a US fighter jet struck the stern of the bulk carrier Ocean Molica, also called Arika Sun, in the Gulf of Oman. CENTCOM, the US military command for the Middle East, said the ship had left an Iranian port and its crew “ignored repeated warnings”, Reuters reported via gCaptain. The strike ended in “fully disabling the ship’s propulsion without harming the crew”, CENTCOM said.
The ship is not a tanker. The Maritime Executive describes it as a 70,000 dwt (deadweight tonnes, a measure of how much it can carry) bulker built in 1996, owned and run out of Hong Kong. It had sat at anchor off Fujairah for weeks from mid-August and tried to leave at least three times before 10 October, the outlet said, citing ship-tracking data.
According to CENTCOM figures reported by gCaptain, this was the fourth commercial ship disabled since US forces resumed the blockade of Iranian ports on 14 July. Over the same period, US forces turned back 135 commercial ships and destroyed 10 tankers linked to the shadow fleet of the IRGC, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
On the same Saturday, UKMTO reported that ship captains near Ras Al Khaimah in the UAE had heard VHF radio broadcasts telling them to leave their anchorages, gCaptain reported.
So a forwarder has two kinds of risk on one booking. One is being hit by Iran or its allies. The other is being stopped or struck by the US because a vessel has an Iranian port in its recent history.

The numbers behind it

Traffic through the strait has thinned again. Data firm Kpler counted seven commodity vessels through Hormuz on Tuesday 6 October, the lowest since 23 July, Reuters reported via The National. That rose to 10 the next day. Before the war began on 28 February, about 125 large commercial ships crossed each day. Kpler’s count leaves out ships with their AIS (the tracking transponder ships broadcast on) switched off, so the real figure may be higher.
Oil is being rerouted, not lost. Kpler analysts Emmanuel Belostrino and Yui Torikata wrote: “Crude crossing the strait fell 27 per cent from a wartime high the week before, to at least 10.1 million barrels a day.” They added: “That is back to its September average, but 74 per cent of its prewar level.” Exports from the Gulf of Oman coast and the Red Sea hit 6.7 million barrels a day, more than twice pre-war levels, the same report said. That is exactly why attacks at Sohar matter. The bypass routes are now the target.
Prices moved, but only a little. Brent crude rose 76 cents to $105.48 a barrel by 7:04 p.m. EDT on Sunday, and US WTI crude rose 59 cents to $92.44, Reuters reported via Fox News.
Fuel costs are already landing on freight bills far from the Gulf. Maersk is raising its Emergency Fuel Surcharge on UK and Ireland land transport to 20% from Monday 12 October, IDNFinancials reported, citing Reuters. The previous UK intermodal fuel fee was 10.6% on 1 October. Maersk said it would keep the surcharge under regular review and could change it again as energy markets move, according to the same report.

What happened last time

This war has already shown how fast costs jump when the risk spreads.
In June, a US–Iran deal set a 60-day window for talks. It lasted less than three weeks, Insurance Business reported. Iranian attacks on three merchant ships led to US strikes, and President Trump declared the ceasefire over on 9 July. That week, Marcus Baker, global head of marine at broker Marsh, said war-risk rates for Hormuz had “risen - to anywhere between 2% and 6%”. The outlet’s own example, a $6 million premium on a $100 million tanker, shows that as a share of the ship’s value. A war-risk premium is the extra insurance a shipowner pays to sail into a war zone. Baker warned: “it is unlikely that they will come back down until the market genuinely believes that the risk environment has changed.”
By late August, Insurance Business put current estimates at 3% to 8% for a Hormuz transit, against about 0.25% of hull value before the war. At their peak, premiums reached 10%, the outlet said. On a $150 million tanker, that is a $15 million bill for one trip.
Cover did not disappear, though. Neil Roberts of the Lloyd’s Market Association said: “There was always and there remains sufficient capacity, with cover available for a price.”
Container lines passed those costs on fast. In late June, Hapag-Lloyd’s Middle East emergency surcharge on India–Gulf cargo reached up to $7,200 per 40ft container from Mundra or Nhava Sheva to Kuwait, relayed through Salalah, The Loadstar reported. The carrier said the surcharge applied to bookings already in transit.
The lesson for forwarders: when the risk zone grows, insurers reprice first and carriers follow within weeks, often on cargo already moving.

What forwarders should do now

Do not treat Gulf of Oman ports as a safe fallback. Sohar, Fujairah and Khor Fakkan routings still work, but expect them to carry war-risk costs that used to apply only inside the Gulf.
Read the surcharge clauses on bookings already afloat. Emergency surcharges have been applied to cargo in transit before in this war.
Screen vessels and carriers. Any ship that has called at an Iranian port is now at risk of being stopped or struck by US forces. Ask for recent port-call history on feeder and charter vessels, especially for breakbulk and bulk cargo.
Build slack into Gulf delivery dates. Waiting at anchor is now a risk in itself, and calls to leave anchorages, like the one near Ras Al Khaimah, can scatter ships at short notice.
Check fuel surcharges well outside the region. Maersk’s UK and Ireland move shows how Middle East energy costs reach inland haulage in Europe. Other carriers and hauliers may follow.
Do not plan on a quick diplomatic fix. On 11 October Iran’s security chief Mohsen Rezaei said Iran had sent seven conditions to Washington about two weeks earlier. “The Americans have now responded. While they have accepted some of our conditions, others remain unresolved,” he said, according to The National. “They have given their reply, and we consider it insufficient.” He added: “The Gulf cannot be secure without Iran’s management of the Strait of Hormuz.” The US has rejected a plan for Iran and Oman to manage the waterway jointly, saying ships should have “free passage under international law”, the outlet reported.

Our call

Our prediction: within six weeks, by 22 November, at least one of the largest container carriers (Maersk, MSC, CMA CGM or Hapag-Lloyd) will publish a new or higher emergency or war-risk surcharge that names Gulf of Oman ports such as Sohar or Fujairah. We also expect Hormuz not to return to normal commercial traffic before the end of 2026, with daily Kpler counts staying far below the pre-war level of about 125 ships. Forwarders quoting Gulf business for Q4 and early Q1 should price on that basis.

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