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Geopolitics Nov 12, 2026 · 7 min read

IMO tells owners to stop trading in Hormuz

Tracker Red Sea and Hormuz: are ships going through? · 5.1 ships/day

The UN’s shipping regulator tells owners to stay out of Hormuz while insurers still quote 7–9%

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) is the UN agency that sets the rules every merchant ship sails under. It has now verified 133 incidents involving merchant vessels in and around the Strait of Hormuz since the conflict began on 28 February, with at least 25 seafarers killed. Those figures run to 10 November.

On Wednesday 11 November, IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez said this in a statement reported by gCaptain: “I strongly urge shipowners and operators to refrain from commercial activities in the Strait that expose seafarers to unacceptable risks.”

In plain terms, the head of the world’s shipping regulator is telling owners not to trade through the strait.

What we think it means

Our view: this is the most important Hormuz development of the week for anyone moving freight into the Gulf. That is not because a statement stops a missile. It changes the argument insurers, owners and charterers have been having all year.

Since February the market’s position has been that cover is available if you pay for it. In August, Neil Roberts, head of marine and aviation at the Lloyd’s Market Association, was quoted by Insurance Business as saying: “There was always and there remains sufficient capacity, with cover available for a price.” He added: “That price reflects the risk.”

Now the regulator has said the risk is “unacceptable” for seafarers. We think that gives every party in the chain a documented reason to step back. Underwriters can tighten terms. P&I clubs, the mutual insurers that cover shipowners’ third-party and crew liabilities, can ask harder questions. Owners can refuse Gulf voyages under charter clauses that let them decline unsafe ports and waters. Crews can point to it as well. None of that reopens the strait to regular container shipping. It pushes the other way.

What the regulator actually said

The statement was not only aimed at owners. Dominguez urged flag states (the countries where ships are registered), port states and coastal states to enforce SOLAS, the core UN convention on ship safety, and other IMO rules in the strait. The problems he named included ships that do not meet basic SOLAS safety standards, vessels hiding their IMO identification numbers, and ships using fraudulent registrations or false flags.

“IMO’s technical and operational regulations are there to protect seafarers, ships and the marine environment,” he said. “They must be respected and enforced effectively.”

He also asked for a political answer. “It is imperative for Governments to tackle the root causes of this conflict,” he said.

According to gCaptain, the statement follows an IMO Council meeting in London from 2 to 6 November, where member states condemned attacks on merchant shipping.

Our reading of the enforcement part: it points at the shadow fleet. That is the pool of older, poorly insured tankers with unclear ownership that moves sanctioned oil. Those ships are still in the strait when mainstream owners are not. If coastal and port states act on the call, more of them could be detained or turned away. That would not help container traffic directly. It does tell you the regulator sees the strait as a place where normal safety rules have broken down.

The attacks are not slowing

The figures do not support any idea that things are calming down.

Marine Insight counts 37 ships attacked in and around the strait in October, the highest monthly total since the war began. Ten more had been recorded in November as of 11 November. It also reports that the IMO’s count was 70 attacks and 19 seafarer deaths at the six-month mark. That means the count has roughly doubled in the following two and a half months. The most recent deaths followed the attack on the tanker Velos Sapphire on 5 November, it says.

Two new events landed on 11 November.

First, Iran’s navy said on state TV, as reported by Euronews: “Early this morning, a violating oil tanker caught fire after striking a naval mine”. It placed the strike “in an unsafe, prohibited area in the east of the Strait of Hormuz”. It named no ship. Xinhua reported the navy as stressing that safe passage requires coordination with Iran’s armed forces. That sits against the US military’s recent claim, noted by Euronews, that all mines had been cleared from the strait. Both claims cannot be fully true. For a shipowner, the gap between them is a risk in itself. Euronews also reported that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Tuesday that three oil tankers had caught fire in Hormuz.

Second, India’s shipping minister, Sarbananda Sonowal, gave the crew toll on the Liberia-flagged VLCC Fujairah Energy. A VLCC is a very large crude carrier, the biggest common type of oil tanker. A projectile hit the ship on 10 November while it was sailing from Al Ruwais to Dubai. “Four crew members were injured in the attack, including one Indian national,” Sonowal said on X, as quoted by Euronews. Marine Insight reports the other 18 crew are safe, and that six Indian seafarers were on board.

Look at that route. Al Ruwais and Dubai are both inside the Gulf. The ship was not crossing the strait when it was hit. For forwarders that matters: the danger zone is not only the narrow channel, it covers the waters container feeders use between Gulf ports.

Why the insurance price looks wrong

Here is the odd part. Gulf war-risk rates have eased a little, even with October’s record attack count.

Insurance Business reported on 9 November that before hostilities began on 28 February, hull war rates for Hormuz transits “sat at around 0.15–0.25% of vessel value.” It said that “As recently as mid-October, brokers were quoting additional premiums for Gulf tankers at 6–10% of hull value.” It said rates have since “eased to 7–9%, and some cover is being written as low as 5%.”

To put that in money terms, Insurance Business set out an example in August. A $150 million tanker paying 10% faces a $15 million premium for one transit, against about $375,000 before the war.

Our view: a market writing cover at 5% while the regulator tells owners to stay out is out of line with the risk. We expect the IMO statement, plus Iran’s new mine claims, to stop that softening. That keeps the cost behind carriers’ Gulf surcharges high.

Oil traders reacted calmly. Brent crude rose 0.2% to $91.71 a barrel in late-morning trading on Wednesday, Euronews reported, and US crude gained 0.1% to $86.12. Hopes of de-escalation were tempered by the continued attacks on shipping. Oil has a support that containers do not: US Central Command, the US military command for the region, said last month that it had helped Gulf countries export 1.5 billion barrels of oil via Hormuz since the summer. Escorted tanker convoys keep crude moving. They do not give a liner network the weekly, on-time calls it needs.

What this means for forwarders and shippers

Some practical points, in our view.

Quote Upper Gulf cargo as war-risk cargo through December. That means Dammam, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Iraq, plus Jebel Ali and other UAE ports inside the Gulf. Keep war-risk, emergency and contingency surcharges in your quotes as separate lines, and keep the wording that lets you pass on new ones. The IMO statement makes cuts to those surcharges less likely, not more.

Expect owners and charterers to be stricter about who goes in. Feeder operators and smaller owners are the most exposed to crew and insurer pushback after a statement like this. Feeder capacity inside the Gulf may get tighter and less reliable. The Fujairah Energy shows that intra-Gulf legs are in the danger zone too.

Keep routing options outside the strait in play. Discharging at ports on the Gulf of Oman or Arabian Sea side and moving cargo on by road is slower and costs more per box. But it does not depend on a strait the regulator has told owners to avoid. Check transit times, border paperwork and trucking capacity now, before December volumes peak.

Talk to shippers about cargo insurance. A carrier’s war-risk surcharge does not protect the goods. Shippers moving high-value cargo into the Gulf should check that their cargo policy’s war cover is active for the voyage and has not lapsed under a cancellation clause.

Do not plan around a quick political fix. Dominguez himself asked governments to tackle the root causes. That is a request, not a timetable.

Our prediction

Nothing in the new facts points to a quick reopening.

Our prediction: no major carrier restores a regular scheduled container service through Hormuz into the Upper Gulf before 1 December 2026. We expect the big carriers’ Gulf war-risk and emergency surcharges to stay in place through December. And we expect CENTCOM to report at least one more non-tanker merchant ship disabled by the end of December.

Sources

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