Iran’s Hormuz blacklist reaches 240 ships
Tracker Red Sea and Hormuz: are ships going through? · 7.3 ships/day
Iran’s blacklist now covers box ships, and the risk sits in the relay as well as the strait
Iran has doubled its list of ships it says are breaking its rules in the Strait of Hormuz. On Monday 2 November, its Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA) published a new Non-Compliance List. The list adds 114 vessels and now runs to 240, The Maritime Executive reported on 3 November. The list now clearly reaches the container trades: four containerships are on it.
Our view is that the expansion changes who carries the risk. Until now the list was mostly a tanker owner’s problem. Now it is also a box line’s problem. Because Iran threatens to list any ship that deals with a listed one, it is also a problem for the forwarder or shipper who picks the vessel.
Get The Freight Brief by email
What's going on in freight, in your inbox every morning. Free.
What is on the list
Risk intelligence firm Orbital analysed the update, according to The Maritime Executive. It counts 118 crude oil tankers among the 240 ships, and 65 of the new entries are tankers. The rest are LPG and LNG carriers, a few bulk carriers and four containerships.
Orbital’s figures show how much of the list falls on the Gulf states’ own fleets. Vessels linked to state companies such as ADNOC, Nakilat, QatarEnergy and Bahri make up 72 entries, 25 of them new. The largest single group is still ships linked to South Korea’s Sinokor. “Orbital notes that Sinokor vessels and the Gulf States’ vessels collectively make up more than half of the list,” The Maritime Executive wrote.
Orbital also found that three listed ships have already been sunk by Iran, five are under sanctions and seven have no registered owner.
The list is about routing. Iran wants ships to clear their passage with it and to sail only through the northern channel close to the Iranian coast, The Maritime Executive reports. Ships that refuse “shall face restrictions on future passages, including fines, detention, or confiscation,” the PGSA says. Iran also tells cargo interests directly that “cargo owners shipping to/from the Persian Gulf must review the Non-Compliance List (NCL) in order to avoid potential issues.”
The new line that matters most for logistics is about secondary listing. “It also says that any vessel cooperating with listed vessels (via STS, transshipment, etc.) will be added to the list,” The Maritime Executive reported. STS means a ship-to-ship transfer, where cargo moves between two vessels at sea or at anchor. Transshipment is when cargo is moved from one ship to another at a hub port.
How fast the list has grown
The list started small. On 24 August, The Maritime Executive reported a first list of 45 vessels, with the same threat of fines, detention or confiscation. By 14 September it had grown to 77 ships across three releases, according to a Windward analysis published by Hellenic Shipping News. Tankers made up 85 per cent of that list.
On 27 October, the PGSA singled out Sinokor. It said the company’s ships “have committed the highest number of crossing violations over the past 3 months,” gCaptain reported, carrying a Bloomberg story. It warned that “legal action will be taken against all vessels of this company” from 1 November. gCaptain added that Sinokor ships carried nearly 40 per cent of the crude oil leaving Hormuz the month before.
Taking 114 additions away from today’s 240 gives 126 ships before Monday’s release. So the list has more than five times the 45 ships it started with, in ten weeks.
Does the list actually stop ships
This is where the evidence is mixed, and we want to be straight about it. In September, Windward found that listed ships kept trading. “Inclusion on the list does not appear to have prevented ships from continuing to trade in the region,” the analysis said. It also found that “Most blacklisted ships have switched off AIS for safety and security reasons.” AIS is the Automatic Identification System, the transponder that broadcasts a ship’s position.
So a tanker owner willing to sail without AIS, using the southern route through Omani waters, had got through, at least as of September. Windward found every listed vessel had either used that southern route or crossed the northern one without paying Iran’s tolls.
But the threat has grown more physical. UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) has reported 18 confirmed attacks since 6 October. These include the sixth attack inside the Gulf since 7 October and three in the Strait of Hormuz, The Maritime Executive reports. The same report says the United States reportedly struck Qeshm Island overnight. Central Command had not acknowledged those strikes, and President Trump called them minor. “CENTCOM continues to dismiss the claims of mines, asserting the Strait of Hormuz has been cleared and remains open,” the outlet added.
A strait that is “open” in a US military statement is not open in an insurer’s or a carrier’s risk model while ships are still being hit. Container lines run fixed weekly schedules and carry many customers’ cargo on one hull. They cannot switch off AIS and try their luck the way a single tanker might.
Why boxships change the picture for forwarders
Most Upper Gulf container cargo already avoids sailing through Hormuz on the mainline ship. Hapag-Lloyd’s booking notice shows how the workarounds run. For Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar and Bahrain: “Your cargo can be transshipped via Fujairah or Khorfakkan before moving by landbridge to Jebel Ali or Sharjah.” From there, boxes move on to their final destination on the intra-Gulf feeder network. Bonded transport between the two coasts takes about five days, the notice says, and “Feeder rotations do not operate on a fixed weekly schedule.” Cargo for Dammam or Jubail goes overland from Jeddah.
CMA CGM uses a similar setup. According to a Tradlinx summary of its March advisory, it offers “a bonded land bridge from Khor Fakkan, Fujairah or Sohar to a UAE hub followed by feeder service”. Maersk routes through Salalah and Khor Fakkan, then moves boxes by land bridge to Sharjah for a feeder, Tradlinx reports.
Here is our reading. These workarounds depend on feeders and relays inside the Gulf. That is exactly the kind of “transshipment” contact Iran now says it will punish. If one of the four listed containerships, or a feeder that has worked alongside a listed ship, sits in your routing, your cargo could be on a vessel Iran has threatened to detain or confiscate. It does not need to pass through the strait for that to matter. Six attacks inside the Gulf since early October show that Iran’s reach does not end at the narrows.
What we think forwarders should do now:
- Check the named mother vessel and every feeder on a Gulf booking against the PGSA list before you confirm. Ask the carrier to name the feeder in writing.
- Recheck at each relay. A ship that is clean today can be added after a single ship-to-ship transfer or relay with a listed vessel.
- Write the risk into your terms. Make sure detention, confiscation or a forced change of route on a listed ship is covered in your quotes, your cargo insurance and your contracts with customers.
- Give shippers longer, honest transit times. Five days of bonded land transport plus feeders with no fixed weekly schedule do not fit a standard Gulf lead time.
- Watch the Gulf state fleets. With 72 ADNOC, Nakilat, QatarEnergy and Bahri-linked ships listed, Iran is pressuring its neighbours’ own shipping. Further additions are likely to come from the same group and their partners.
What happens next
Iran has made the list bigger at every step: 45, then 77, then 126, now 240. Each step has widened its reach, from tankers and Gulf state fleets to Sinokor’s whole fleet, and now to containerships and their partners. Nothing in Monday’s release points to a pause. Today’s US midterm elections may change the politics in Washington. But a new round of talks would take weeks to produce anything that carriers and their insurers would trust with a weekly service.
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 today’s US midterms. Until then, Upper Gulf cargo will keep moving by land bridge and feeder. We expect checking vessels and feeders against the PGSA list to become a normal step in Gulf bookings over the same period.
Sources
Get The Freight Brief by email
What's going on in freight, in your inbox every morning. Free.
Read us on Google? Add Forwarder News as a preferred source to see more of our stories in Top Stories.