Wednesday, November 4, 2026
The news that moves freight
Geopolitics Nov 4, 2026 · 7 min read

US strikes Qeshm as a seafarer dies off Oman

Tracker Red Sea and Hormuz: are ships going through? · 7.3 ships/day

Oil is pricing a Hormuz deal. The strait is still pricing a war

US forces struck Iranian targets on Qeshm Island on the evening of Monday 2 November. Qeshm is the large island on the north side of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow channel between Iran and Oman that leads into the Gulf. Multiple US officials told CBS News the US had carried out “limited defensive strikes”. A senior military official said they “came in response to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps firing upon a U.S. aircraft.” On Tuesday 3 November President Trump confirmed the strike on an anti-aircraft site, calling it a “minor attack” that “wasn’t a war” (HNGN).

The strike came on the same day oil fell sharply. Brent crude, the global benchmark, dropped 7.6%, or $8.66, to settle at $104.77 a barrel on 2 November, on hopes that talks would end the war (HNGN).

Our view is simple. The oil market is pricing a deal. The water is still pricing a war. For anyone moving containers into the Gulf, the second matters more, and it will keep mattering for weeks after any agreement is signed.

What happened on 1 and 2 November

The Qeshm strike was not announced by Washington in advance. HNGN reports that officials describe it as one of several limited, unannounced attacks in recent weeks. The last publicly known US strikes before this were in early September. Iranian state media reported explosions on Qeshm and on the smaller island of Hengam, and in the Bandar Abbas area on the mainland. Bandar Abbas is Iran’s main container port. The IRGC, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, claimed it shot down three US drones near Qeshm. US Central Command (CENTCOM), which runs US forces in the region, denied that (HNGN).

Trump was blunt about what may come next. “We still have to take care of, I would say, one or two sites, but we can do that in 10 minutes,” he said, according to HNGN. He also said he was in “no rush” to decide whether to resume the war. Hours before the strike he had posted on Truth Social: “Iran wants a settlement, as soon as possible” (CBS News).

At sea, the small boats kept getting hit. On Monday an Indian dhow, a traditional cargo boat that carries general goods around the Gulf and Arabian Sea, was struck off Limah, Oman, on the Omani side of the strait. One crewman died of injuries sustained in the strike. The Omani Coast Guard rescued 13 others (The Maritime Executive). A day earlier, on Sunday 1 November, UKMTO said another vessel was hit by an “unknown projectile” about nine nautical miles off the coast of Oman; its crew was reported safe (CBS News). UKMTO is the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre, which collects incident reports from merchant ships in the region.

Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB claimed 11 oil tankers had “caught fire” in the strait in the previous nine days. It gave no evidence (CBS News). Iran’s navy also claimed a tanker hit a mine on Sunday; that could not be verified, and CENTCOM denies Iran’s mine claims (HNGN).

Why the oil fall is the wrong signal for freight

The temptation is to read a 7.6% fall in Brent as a sign that the crisis is easing. We think that is a mistake for freight.

First, the attack count is going up, not down. UKMTO said there had been 30 attacks on commercial vessels in the region in October alone, “a record high” (CBS News). HNGN puts the figure at just over 30, the most in any month of the war.

Second, traffic is almost gone. Maritime trackers using IMF PortWatch data recorded two transits through Hormuz on 25 October, against a pre-crisis baseline of about 85 a day (HNGN). That is a strait running at a few per cent of normal.

Third, the oil rebound came fast. After news of the Qeshm strike, Brent rose back to about $105–106 on Tuesday (HNGN). CBS News notes Brent has traded between roughly $70 and $120 a barrel since just before the war began. A market that swings by $8 in a day on a headline is a market that does not know what happens next.

Fourth, the peace offer on the table is heavily conditional. Iran says it can reopen the strait within two days, rather than the seven in an earlier plan carried by Qatar. But Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, listed five conditions: lift the US naval blockade, issue oil sanctions waivers, unfreeze Iranian assets abroad, stop fighting on all regional fronts including Lebanon, and recognise an Iran–Oman arrangement for passage through the strait (HNGN). Until then, Iran says, traffic will not return to normal. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said on 2 November: “The ball is in the U.S. court, because our demands have been stated very clearly and transparently” (CBS News). As of Tuesday, HNGN reported, Washington had not yet answered.

That last condition deserves attention from anyone in shipping. An Iran–Oman arrangement “governing passage through the strait” would, in plain terms, give Iran a formal say over who passes. Insurers and carriers will want to read the fine print before they send ships back.

The human cost is now a commercial cost

The death off Limah adds to pressure from seafarer groups. India’s Ministry of External Affairs confirmed the incident and said: “The targeting of commercial shipping and civilian infrastructure in the region must end” (The Maritime Executive). A seafarers’ union was sharper: “Advisories are not protection. Seafarers are civilians, not combatants.” It demanded enforceable protection and compensation for families (The Maritime Executive).

This matters for freight because crews and their unions have a say in where ships go. When seafarers’ groups demand enforceable protection, owners face harder crewing, higher wage bonuses for the area and more refusals to sail. All of that ends up in the freight rate.

What it costs to sail there

The cost of insuring a ship through Hormuz tells the story. Before the war started on 28 February, hull war-risk rates for a Hormuz transit were about 0.25% of the ship’s value. War-risk cover is the extra insurance a ship needs to enter a listed danger zone, charged per voyage. Within weeks of the first strikes, rates were 3% to 10%, according to Marsh’s global head of marine, Marcus Baker. By late August they were still 3% to 8% (Insurance Business, 26 August). On a $150 million tanker, a 10% rate is a $15 million premium for one transit, against roughly $375,000 before the war (Insurance Business).

Rates do come down when things calm. Neil Roberts of the Lloyd’s Market Association said rates showed a “softening” after a memorandum of understanding was signed in June, and an “uptick” followed three vessel attacks in the first week of July (Insurance Business, 2 September). He has also said cover is there “for a price” and “That price reflects the risk” (Insurance Business, 26 August).

The lesson from June and July is that insurers move quickly when ships are hit, and slowly when talks go well. A record month of attacks in October and a US strike on Qeshm in early November point in one direction.

What this means for forwarders

If you ship into the Gulf, plan as if Hormuz stays closed to regular container traffic for the rest of the year. In practice:

  • Keep war-risk and emergency surcharges in your quotes. Do not offer customers fixed all-in rates that assume they will drop off soon.
  • Keep using overland routes. That means discharging at ports outside the strait, such as Red Sea or Omani ports, and trucking cargo into the Gulf states. These routes are slower and cost more, but they move.
  • The Upper Gulf is the hardest hit. Kuwait, Iraq, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s east coast sit deepest inside the Gulf. Feeder ships, the small vessels that shuttle boxes from big hub ports, have the furthest to sail through danger. Expect the longest delays and highest add-ons there.
  • Watch bunker charges, often called a BAF (bunker adjustment factor), the fuel surcharge carriers add to freight. Brent’s $8 fall will not show up in BAFs for weeks, and Tuesday’s rebound may cancel it anyway.
  • Set customer expectations in writing. If a deal does come, there will be a lag of weeks while insurers reassess, navies check for mines and carriers rebuild schedules.
  • Watch Washington. The US midterm elections are on 3 November. Trump had said the US would not strike before them, and officials say he is still weighing options for after (HNGN). The Qeshm strike shows that “limited” action can happen at any time.

Our call

Our prediction: no major carrier restores a regular scheduled container service through Hormuz into the Upper Gulf before 1 December 2026. The Qeshm strike makes that call firmer, not weaker. Even if Washington accepts Iran’s two-day offer this month, we expect insurers, navies and carriers to need well over four weeks before a weekly service into Kuwait or Iraq runs through the strait again.

Sources

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