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Geopolitics Nov 1, 2026 · 8 min read

Gulf attacks reach an LNG carrier as Washington says no decision yet on strikes

Most Gulf strikes now hit the lane Washington calls safe, and the talks have stopped

On Saturday 31 October India’s shipping minister said all 25 crew of the LNG carrier Al Mayeda are safe. A projectile hit the ship in the Gulf on Friday 30 October. It is flagged in the Marshall Islands, and six of the crew are Indian. The minister, Sarbananda Sonowal, posted on X: “All 6 Indian nationals, along with the entire 25-member crew, are completely safe.”

That makes a gas carrier one of the targets in a month that UKMTO now says was the worst of the war so far. And on Saturday the US said it still has not decided whether to strike Iran again. Iran said it has no talks planned.

What we think it means

Our view is simple. The Gulf is not getting safer, and the route meant to be the safe one is where most of the damage is happening. Carriers and insurers price risk on what they see on the water. What they see this week is more attacks, wider targets and no political track. None of that supports cutting surcharges or restoring direct services soon.

The LNG strike matters for one more reason. Gas carriers are high-value, tightly crewed ships run by careful operators. If they are in the line of fire, no vessel type can count on being left alone. A container ship heading for Jebel Ali has no reason to expect better treatment.

The numbers behind that view

UKMTO stands for UK Maritime Trade Operations. It is a Royal Navy-linked centre that ships report incidents to in the region. On 30 October it gave a tally, reported by CBS News.

  • “There were just over 30 attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, Gulf of Oman or Persian Gulf reported in October.” Only March, the war’s first month, also reached 30.
  • “There were twice as many attacks in October as there were in September.”
  • “Since the war started, there have been 145 reported incidents.”
  • “Since July 6, 59 of the 81 projectile strikes on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz region came along the southern route.”

That last figure is the one forwarders should remember. CBS News reports that “The U.S. has championed the southern route, and used it to escort oil tankers out of the Persian Gulf,” while Iran calls that route illegal and says ships must use the northern lane along its own coast. In plain terms, nearly three in four projectile strikes since early July landed on the lane Washington wants ships to use.

The same day, UKMTO reported another hit. According to Xinhua, citing UKMTO, an unnamed vessel was struck by an unknown projectile at 18:00 UTC on 30 October, about 40 nautical miles (74 km) south of Iran’s Lavan Island. The master said it hit the port side and started a fire. The crew were safe. UKMTO did not give the ship’s name, type or flag, so it is not clear whether this was the Al Mayeda.

Iran is also making its own claims. Reuters, via gCaptain, reported that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Navy said four oil tankers caught fire while trying to use routes it called “unauthorised”. Reuters could not immediately verify this. On Saturday afternoon Iran’s navy said another tanker hit naval mines in the eastern Strait of Hormuz, according to the Iranian agency WANA. That tanker was not named and the claim has not been confirmed.

The US denies at least one Iranian claim. Iran said it destroyed a US sea drone. US Central Command (CENTCOM) replied on X, Reuters reported via gCaptain: “All U.S. military unmanned surface vessels in the Middle East are accounted for, including a squadron of advanced sea drones on patrol in the Strait of Hormuz.” CENTCOM’s commander, Adm. Brad Cooper, also repeated that the US has “successfully cleared the strait’s internationally recognized primary transit routes of Iranian sea mines.”

Both things can be true at once. A lane can be swept of mines and still be hit by projectiles. Clearing mines does not stop a missile or a drone.

There was one small piece of good news. The UAE said on 30 October that “No new oil leakage has been detected from the tanker GEM NO. 2,” and that cleanup continues.

Washington has not decided, and Tehran is not talking

On Saturday 31 October Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted G20 foreign ministers in Atlanta. AFP, via Arab News, reported that he said President Trump “hasn’t made a decision” on further military action against Iran. Reports say a strike could come after Tuesday’s US midterm elections on 3 November. Rubio said the US can achieve its military objectives “if we seek to”. He criticised Tehran for “actively and openly” targeting commercial vessels. He gave no timeline for talks.

Iran’s side was just as firm. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said, according to Gulf News: “Currently, there are no plans for meetings with American officials.” Iran’s Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, warned the US and Israel against new attacks. Axios reported that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is pressing Trump for a joint operation against Iran immediately after the midterms, Gulf News said.

The G20 foreign ministers ended two days of talks without a joint communiqué, Gulf News reported. Keeping “critical shipping routes” open, including Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb, was on the agenda. Rubio issued a chairman’s statement instead. Kuwait has warned residents of “live-fire exercises in the south of the country” from 1 to 5 November.

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, told AFP on Thursday that “escalation does not benefit anyone”. That is a fair summary. It is not a plan.

What happened last time the risk eased

There is a useful history here. Before the war began at the end of February, war-risk insurance for a Hormuz transit cost about 0.25% of a ship’s hull value, according to Insurance Business. War-risk cover is a separate policy that pays out for damage from acts of war. Within weeks of the first strikes, rates jumped to between 3% and 10%, citing Marsh, the insurance broker. In late August the publication put current estimates at 3% to 8%.

At 10%, the premium on a $150 million tanker is $15 million for one transit, the same publication calculated. That compares with about $375,000 before the war.

Rates did ease once. After a ceasefire framework was signed in June, Neil Roberts of the Lloyd’s Market Association described a “softening”. Then three vessels were attacked in the first week of July and he described an “uptick”. Insurance Business reported in early September that the June deal had expired and that fighting had resumed.

The lesson for forwarders: the market gave relief only after a political deal and a run of quiet weeks. It took it back after one week of attacks. October has given us neither the deal nor the quiet.

What it means for forwarders and shippers

The container trade has already reshaped itself around the Gulf. Jebel Ali, Dubai’s main port, fell from 10th to 32nd in global container port rankings, Marine Insight reported in September, citing Alphaliner. Its first-half 2026 volume was about 3.14 million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units, the standard container measure), down from 7.77 million a year earlier.

Cargo has moved to ports outside the strait. AGBI reported in August that Gulf-bound boxes are going through Fujairah and Khor Fakkan in the UAE and Sohar and Salalah in Oman, with some through Jeddah on the Red Sea. Many east-west services go around the Cape of Good Hope. Neil Dekker of the maritime intelligence firm Infospectrum said at a Lloyd’s List webinar, AGBI reported, that carriers are “certainly not going to go back into Hormuz with any degree of certainty at the moment”.

In practice, we think forwarders should do the following through November.

  • Quote Gulf cargo on contingency terms. Assume discharge outside the strait, then truck or feeder inland.
  • Keep war-risk and emergency surcharges in customer quotes. Do not promise they will fall.
  • Check detention and demurrage terms. These are charges for keeping containers or leaving them at the port too long. They can change when the port of discharge changes.
  • Build buffer into Gulf delivery dates. Inland legs from Fujairah or Sohar add time and handling.
  • Hold air options for urgent cargo. If strikes resume after 3 November, Gulf airspace and air capacity may tighten again, as they did in March when airspace closed across the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, according to Insurance Business.
  • Warn customers in writing that dates can move at short notice.

Shippers should treat any talk of a “reopening” with care. A reopening for tankers under naval escort is not the same as a weekly container service with a fixed schedule into Jebel Ali, Dammam or Umm Qasr.

Our prediction

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 facts strengthen that call. October was the worst month of the war so far, most strikes hit the US-backed lane, and as of Saturday there were no talks planned.

Sources