Saturday, October 31, 2026
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Geopolitics Oct 31, 2026 · 8 min read

Hormuz attacks shift to small boats and limpet mines

You can sweep a lane for mines, but not a speedboat: Hormuz risk has moved to the hull

On Thursday evening, 29 October, a small boat pulled up to an oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz and fixed two explosive devices to its side. That is what the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre (UKMTO), the British navy’s merchant shipping reporting desk, said on Friday. The blasts caused “an engine-room fire and temporarily disabling the vessel,” Iran International reported. Euronews said the tanker was the Louise 1, as named by the Financial Times. The fire was put out, the crew were safe and the ship carried on.

Less than a day later, on Friday 30 October, Oman’s Maritime Security Center said a Panama-flagged vessel had been attacked and caught fire about 1.6 nautical miles off Musandam, the Omani peninsula that forms the southern shore of the strait. The Royal Navy of Oman evacuated 25 crew.

The same day, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said two more tankers had caught fire on routes it does not allow, and were then stopped in southern waters. It gave no details of who the ships were.

Earlier in the week the argument was about sea mines in the shipping lanes. That argument is now beside the point.

Why this changes the risk

Our view is simple. The US has spent weeks telling shipping that the lanes are clear. A limpet mine makes that message far less useful.

A limpet mine is a charge stuck to a ship’s hull, usually by divers or by crew on a small boat that comes alongside. It does not sit in the water waiting for a ship. It is carried to the ship. So clearing mines from a channel, which is what navies do with minesweepers, does nothing to stop it. The danger is no longer a fixed spot on a chart. It is any fast boat that can get close.

That hurts the “cleared lanes” story most. The US message is that the main lanes are now safe to use. Both new attacks happened close to Oman’s Musandam coast: one about 25 nautical miles northeast of Khasab, the other 1.6 nautical miles off Musandam. If ships are being hit near the lanes the US calls cleared, then “cleared” no longer answers the question carriers and insurers are asking.

We think this is a bigger deal for planning than any single mine claim. A mine field can be swept and declared safe. A small-boat campaign can only be judged by weeks of incident-free transits. And those weeks just reset to zero.

What the reports say

The details come from three sets of reports, and they do not all agree.

On the Louise 1, Euronews reported that the small boat “attached two explosive devices to its hull above the waterline,” about “25 nautical miles (46 kilometers) northeast of Khasab, Oman.” Euronews also described it as possibly the first reported successful limpet-mine attack in the strait since the US-Iran war began in February 2026. No pollution was reported and the ship resumed its voyage.

On the Musandam fire, Oman’s Maritime Security Center gave the location and the 25 crew taken off, according to Euronews. It did not name the ship or say who attacked it.

On the IRGC claims, the Guard said the two tankers had used “routes Tehran considers unauthorized in the eastern and western sections” of the strait. It said the ships “had switched off their navigation and positioning systems” and “continued sailing despite repeated radio warnings before encountering trouble.” It also said they were leaving “with the support of the U.S. military.” It is not clear whether either of these tankers is the Louise 1 or the ship off Musandam. Treat the IRGC version as a claim, not a confirmed count.

The US position has not moved. Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of US Central Command (CENTCOM), said again that the main lanes have been cleared of Iranian mines, that Iran’s navy has been destroyed and that the IRGC is no longer operating in the waterway, Euronews reported. CENTCOM also rejected an IRGC claim to have “taken control of an American MQM-170 Outlaw drone.”

Both things can be true at once. The lanes can be free of moored mines while small boats still reach ships. That is exactly the gap this week’s attacks fall into.

What insurers were already charging

Insurers had not believed the “all clear” even before Thursday.

Before the war began on 28 February, war-risk rates for Hormuz transits “stood at around 0.15% to 0.25% of vessel value,” Insurance Business reported on 2 September. After the first US and Israeli strikes, Marcus Baker, global head of marine at broker Marsh, said premiums “surged to between 3% and 10%.” War-risk cover is the extra insurance a ship needs to enter a listed conflict zone, and it is usually priced per voyage as a share of the hull’s value.

By late August, with the White House saying the strait was clear, Insurance Business reported that “Premiums remain between 3% and 8% of hull value as the JWC’s listing conditions go unmet.” The JWC is the Joint War Committee of the London market, which decides which waters count as high risk. The same report said IMF PortWatch “recorded one commercial transit on August 16,” against “a pre-crisis median of approximately 73 vessels per day.”

Neil Roberts, head of marine and aviation at the Lloyd’s Market Association, put the market’s view plainly: “There was always and there remains sufficient capacity, with cover available for a price,” he said. “That price reflects the risk.”

To give a sense of scale, using our own arithmetic: at 3% of hull value, a ship insured for $50 million pays around $1.5 million in extra cover for one trip. A boxship operator running a weekly loop through the strait would face that bill again and again. An attack on the swept route is the kind of event that keeps those rates up.

What happened last time

This is not the first limpet campaign near Hormuz. On 12 May 2019, four tankers were attacked near Fujairah. An international investigation found they were targeted with limpet mines, and an Emirati-led inquiry concluded the attack was “conducted by a sophisticated state actor.” On 13 June 2019, the Kokuka Courageous and the Front Altair were hit in the Gulf of Oman. The Kokuka Courageous’s hull was reportedly breached above the waterline. The US released video it said showed IRGC members removing an unexploded mine from it. Iran denied any role.

The market reaction then is a useful guide. The Gulf war-risk premium for supertankers rose from $50,000 to $185,000 after the June 2019 attacks, Bloomberg reported at the time, according to Wikipedia’s summary. That was in peacetime, and with no shipping lane closed. The 2019 attacks did not stop traffic. But they showed that a few successful hull attacks can reprice a whole region for months.

The difference now is the starting point. In 2019 premiums rose from a low base. In 2026 they are already measured in percentage points of hull value, and transit counts are a small fraction of normal.

What it means for forwarders

For anyone booking cargo into the Gulf, here is what we think follows.

First, the deal-or-strike question is the main planning variable for next week. Qatari mediators returned to Tehran on Friday. CBS News reported signs of progress, with Iran expected to respond to a revised Qatari proposal by the end of the week, according to Euronews. Axios reported that the US and Israel were considering major strikes after the 3 November midterm elections. President Trump told a Kansas City radio station the war would end “soon,” without saying how.

Second, carrier charges are unlikely to come down soon. Earlier in the war, as Iran targeted Gulf ports, CMA CGM brought in an “Emergency Conflict Surcharge of $2,000 for 20-foot, $3,000per40-foot”and“$4,000 per refrigerated container” on Red Sea ports and Persian Gulf destinations, FreightWaves reported. Nothing this week gives a carrier a reason to cut that kind of charge.

Third, plan around the strait, not through it. For Upper Gulf cargo, that means pricing in Omani and Red Sea-side ports, overland trucking and feeder legs, and longer transit times. Quote shippers with validity periods short enough to absorb a surcharge change.

Fourth, watch crews. A hull attack at close range is a different fear from a mine. Seafarer unions and manning agents can refuse transits faster than insurers can price them. If crew refusals rise, ships stay outside even where cover is available.

Fifth, don’t treat a deal as a reopening. Even a signed agreement leaves the small-boat problem in place until insurers and carriers see weeks of attack-free transits. Those weeks start counting only after the last attack.

Our call

Our prediction: no major carrier restores a regular scheduled container service through Hormuz into the Upper Gulf before 1 December 2026. That holds even if talks restart straight after the 3 November midterms. A US strike in the next two weeks would push that date further out. A deal would start a slow recovery, not a reopening, because insurers and carriers will want weeks of attack-free transits before they commit ships and schedules. This week’s limpet attack near the lanes the US calls cleared makes that wait longer, not shorter.

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