Geopolitics Oct 13, 2026 · 8 min read

Hormuz: six ships hit in a day, talks stall, and the Fujairah workaround wobbles

An inbound boxship was among six ships hit at Hormuz. Plan Gulf cargo around the strait through year-end. Six commercial ships were reported struck in and around the Strait of Hormuz on 11 October. Five were tankers and one was an inbound container ship (gCaptain). Our view: the strait is now a risk for container ships too, not just tankers. Transits ran at about 29 a day against a usual 138 (US NCAGS, via gCaptain). Iran called the US reply on reopening “insufficient” (Reuters). Forwarders should route Upper Gulf cargo through Omani and UAE east-coast ports by default. Our prediction: no return to normal container transits through Hormuz before 31 December.

Hormuz now threatens boxships as well as tankers. Plan Gulf cargo around the strait until 2027

Six commercial ships were reported struck in and around the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday 11 October. The war began at the end of February. Five were tankers. The sixth was an inbound container ship.

Our view is simple. For more than seven months, freight people could tell themselves that Hormuz was mainly an oil and tanker story. That no longer holds. A boxship has been hit inside the strait, attacks are spreading to anchorages, and the diplomatic track has stalled. Forwarders should treat the strait as closed to normal container planning for the rest of this year. Bypass routes should be the default, not the backup.

What happened on 11 October

The UK Maritime Trade Operations centre (UKMTO), which issues security alerts to merchant ships in the region, put out five new warnings. Four were late reports of earlier incidents, gCaptain reported. Warnings 165-26 to 169-26 included an outbound product tanker, an outbound crude tanker, another outbound tanker and “an inbound container ship, all struck by unidentified projectiles while passing through the strait”.

The fifth new warning covered a tanker hit by an uncrewed aerial vehicle (a drone) near Sohar anchorage in the Gulf of Oman. UKMTO first logged it as suspicious activity and then upgraded it to an attack. An earlier warning, 164-26, covered the sixth ship: an outbound tanker that took a hit to its port side, with damage to its steering gear room. It was heading for Fujairah anchorage.

The human cost is real. The tanker at Sohar was the MT Petro Dolphin, with 11 Indian seafarers on board. India’s Shipping Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said “nine of our Indian crew members have been successfully rescued and are safe” and “two Indian nationals currently remain missing” (Arab News Pakistan, via AFP). A second ship, the Marshall Islands-flagged MT Valthera, was hit by a projectile in the strait and caught fire. All 11 Indian crew were reported safe. India’s ministry said: “The safety and security of Indian seafarers remain a priority for the Government of India” (Gulf News).

The day before, on 10 October, US forces disabled the bulk carrier Ocean Molica in the Gulf of Oman. US Central Command said the ship had tried to evade the US blockade of Iranian shipping (gCaptain). That incident was separate from the six attacks.

Why we think the risk has changed

Three details matter more than the headline count.

First, the target list now includes a container ship sailing into the Gulf. Inbound boxships carry the consumer goods, machinery and project cargo that forwarders move into Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Dammam, Kuwait and Qatar. If they are in the line of fire, so is your customer’s cargo.

Second, the attacks are no longer confined to the narrow strait. The Joint Maritime Information Center (JMIC), a naval-led security advisory body, kept the Hormuz threat level at SEVERE, its second-highest. It warned that “further deliberate attacks on merchant shipping were highly likely” and pointed to “vessels targeted at anchorages and inside the Persian Gulf” (gCaptain). Sohar and Fujairah are exactly the places forwarders have been using to get around the strait. Waiting at anchor there is no longer a safe harbour.

Third, traffic is a fraction of normal. US Naval Cooperation and Guidance for Shipping (NCAGS) data showed “approximately 29 vessel transits per day” over the prior 72 hours, against “a historical average of roughly 138 daily transits” (gCaptain). That is about 21 per cent of normal. gCaptain added that independent tracking showed substantially fewer.

The diplomacy has stalled

There is no quick political fix in sight. At the UN General Assembly, Iran proposed that the strait could reopen within seven days if Washington met seven conditions. The US replied through Qatari intermediaries. On 11 October, Iran’s security chief Mohsen Rezaei told state media that reply was “insufficient” (Reuters, via gCaptain).

Rezaei said the US had “accepted some of our conditions, while others remain unclear”. He said Iran had “clearly stated that the Strait of Hormuz would not be opened to them, and no negotiations would take place, until these conditions are met”. He added that Iran is “no longer in the process of responding to the Americans”. The White House did not immediately comment, Reuters said.

The background is not encouraging. Reuters noted the Gulf ceasefire had already collapsed. Tehran said in late September that it had received a US response to its proposal, days after President Trump said he had rejected it. Messages are going through Qatar and other mediators. Normally, about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passes through the strait.

The Fujairah workaround is wobbling

The oil trade had found a way round the problem, and it matters for container people too. Big tankers waited off Fujairah in the UAE and in Omani waters. Smaller shuttle tankers made the risky run through Hormuz, brought crude out, and transferred it from ship to ship. Bloomberg said that workaround “has helped Persian Gulf oil exports recover to near prewar levels” (republished by gCaptain on 13 October).

Now it is fraying. Bloomberg’s tanker tracking shows at least 10 VLCCs (very large crude carriers, the biggest tankers afloat) and several Suezmaxes (the largest tankers that fit through the Suez Canal) heading for Fujairah have stopped or reversed course in recent days. Bloomberg pointed to “near-daily attacks around the Strait of Hormuz”, some close to Fujairah itself. If the big ships keep retreating, shuttle tankers sit idle longer and crude flows slow at a time “when tanker availability is already tight”. Bloomberg said hiring a tanker to carry oil from the US to China “now costs more than launching a rocket into space”.

Why should a container forwarder care? Tanker disruption feeds into oil and fuel costs, and fuel costs feed into the bunker surcharges on your invoices.

What happened last time, and what bypass routes can carry

We have seen the first wave of this. By 2 March, days after the war began, Maersk, MSC, Hapag-Lloyd and CMA CGM had halted transits through Hormuz. Hapag-Lloyd and CMA CGM brought in surcharges of “$1,500 per TEU to $4,000 for reefer units” (Breakbulk News). A TEU is a twenty-foot equivalent unit, the standard measure of a container. A reefer is a refrigerated box.

Insurance tells the same story. Singapore’s Ministry of Transport told parliament in August that, by July, war-risk cover for a Hormuz transit cost 3.5 to 7.5 per cent of a ship’s hull and machinery value per transit. Before the conflict it was 0.10 to 0.25 per cent. Hull and machinery value is, roughly, what the ship is insured for. The same reply said Asia-North Europe container rates were about 120 per cent above pre-conflict levels.

The bypass options are real but limited. In March, Drewry, the shipping consultancy, estimated that Gulf-side terminals in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain handle about 33 million TEU a year, with Jebel Ali alone at about 15.5 million. Including re-exports, about 65 per cent of Jebel Ali’s throughput is transhipment, meaning boxes moved from one ship to another, not delivered locally. Drewry put spare capacity at the main bypass ports at over 20 million TEU a year, but “heavily qualified by geography”. Khor Fakkan, about 130 km from Dubai, was the only port where Drewry judged bypass value genuinely high. Sohar is about 230 km by road from Jebel Ali. Salalah has spare capacity but sits about 1,700 km from Dubai by road. Drewry’s verdict: “no combination of available bypass ports and inland logistics can fully substitute for Hormuz access in the short term” (Drewry, via Hellenic Shipping News).

What forwarders should do now

We would plan on these lines.

Make the bypass the default. Quote Upper Gulf cargo through Khor Fakkan, Sohar or Jeddah with trucking onward, rather than treating it as a fallback. Book trucks early. Land-bridge capacity is finite and every forwarder in the region is chasing it.

Build in time and cost. Expect longer anchorage waits and extra handling at bypass ports. Expect war-risk and emergency surcharges to stay on the invoice. Put validity limits and surcharge pass-through clauses into quotes, so a new carrier notice does not wipe out your margin.

Watch the anchorages, not just the strait. With JMIC flagging attacks at anchorages, cargo sitting off Fujairah or Sohar is not risk-free. Check what your customers’ cargo insurance covers for war risk while the cargo is waiting at anchor.

Talk to shippers about inventory. Customers in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and eastern Saudi Arabia face the longest and most expensive detours. Some will want to bring orders forward or hold more stock before the year-end peak.

Keep an eye on fuel. If the Fujairah ship-to-ship trade keeps shrinking, tanker rates and fuel prices are likely to follow. Bunker surcharges will move with them.

Our call

Our prediction is that Hormuz does not return to normal for container shipping this year. Specifically, we expect US NCAGS daily transit counts to stay below 50, under half the historical average of about 138, through the end of November. We also expect no major container line to restore routine direct calls through the strait to Upper Gulf ports before 31 December 2026. Iran’s own position, that there is no reopening and no negotiation until its conditions are met, gives no reason to plan for anything quicker.

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