Gulf attacks reach beyond Hormuz
Tracker Red Sea and Hormuz: are ships going through? · 5.1 ships/day
The danger zone has moved past the strait: a tanker burns off the UAE while 211 ships wait at anchor
At about 1800 UTC on Wednesday 11 November, a projectile hit the engine room of the crude tanker Dominica Prosperity. The ship was about 14 nautical miles northwest of Ras Al Khaimah, UAE, near the port of Mina Saqr. The security firm Ambrey said it was struck near the stern as it exited the Strait of Hormuz. A fire was still being fought when UKMTO, the UK Navy’s shipping-incident office, issued its warning on Thursday, gCaptain reported. The UAE Coast Guard took off all 22 crew. Nobody was hurt.
The tanker is Liberia-flagged. Reuters, citing the risk service MARISKS, said it is operated by South Korea’s Sinokor Maritime.
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Here is what we think it means. For most of this war, the risk has been described as a narrow waterway: get through Hormuz and you are out. That is no longer true. Ships are being hit after they clear the strait. Iran claims mine strikes east of it, where the waiting ships anchor. And Houthi fire is aimed at Saudi Arabia’s main bypass. Our view is that forwarders should stop treating any Gulf routing as the “safe” option. There are only less dangerous options, and they are filling up.
Four tanker attacks in one advisory
The background is short. The US-Israeli war with Iran began in late February, CBS reports, and shipping through Hormuz has been at a trickle since. The Joint Maritime Information Center (JMIC), a naval-led centre that tracks threats to merchant ships, now counts 181 maritime security incidents since 1 March.
Its 12 November advisory, as reported by gCaptain, logged four tanker attacks since its previous update:
- Fujairah Energy, struck on 10 November while eastbound in the Gulf. Several crew were hurt and taken ashore.
- An unnamed tanker, struck on 10 November about 19 nautical miles northeast of Lima, Oman, inside the strait.
- NCC Fajr, struck at about 0200 UTC on 11 November north of Khasab, Oman. UKMTO first reported it without confirming a strike, then reclassified it as an attack.
- Dominica Prosperity, off Ras Al Khaimah, later the same day.
UKMTO has not said who fired in any of the four. JMIC puts the wider threat down to Iranian attacks and harassment, including drone overflights and radio calls aimed at ships.
Then come Iran’s own claims. The Revolutionary Guards’ navy (the IRGC) said two supertankers were “disabled” by explosions on Wednesday night after ignoring warnings against an “unauthorised route”, Reuters reported via MarineLink. Iranian state media later said they “exploded after hitting naval mines”. CBS News quoted the IRGC saying the two “were carrying a combined total of over four million barrels of oil, which are now ablaze”. Separately, CBS reported that Iran’s army said two tankers hit mines east of the strait. None of these ships has been named. None of the claims has been independently confirmed. We treat them as claims, not facts.
211 ships waiting, and the counts don’t agree
JMIC says about 211 commercial ships are stationary at the big anchorages east of Hormuz: Fujairah, Khor Fakkan, Sohar and Musandam. These are the places a forwarder now relies on. Gulf-bound containers are discharged there and moved on by feeder ship (a small vessel that shuttles boxes from a hub to smaller ports) or by truck.
How many ships actually get through? It depends who is counting. Independent tracking showed single-digit to low double-digit transits a day. The US Navy’s NCAGS cell (Naval Cooperation and Guidance for Shipping, which advises merchant ships) reported about 34 US-assisted transits a day over its latest 96-hour window. JMIC itself says the two figures use different methods and cannot be compared directly. Either way, it is a fraction of normal traffic through a strait that CBS notes usually carries about a fifth of the world’s oil.
The container cost is already visible. On 28 October, S&P Global’s Platts assessed West Coast India to Middle East spot rates at $5,500 per FEU (a forty-foot container), up roughly 1,900% since 27 February and a five-year high. Platts reported that carriers had shifted calls to Khor Fakkan, Fujairah, Sohar and Jeddah, with congestion and delays rising at those ports. One shipper told Platts: “Rates are now secondary; there are not enough vessels being taken to Khor Fakkan”. A carrier source said containers took 8 to 10 days to reach Jebel Ali by road, even after quick customs clearance.
That was before this week’s attacks off the UAE coast. Every strike in these waters makes owners more cautious about the anchorages that hold up the whole workaround.
The Saudi bypass is now a target
The second workaround is Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline. It carries crude from the Gulf coast to Yanbu on the Red Sea, avoiding Hormuz entirely. For freight, the Red Sea coast also matters as the landing point for cargo that goes to Jeddah and travels overland into the Gulf.
On 12 November, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree claimed a drone strike on Pumping Station No. 7 of the pipeline and a ballistic missile strike on an oil facility at Yanbu, according to Reuters and Middle East Eye as relayed by House of Saud. Saudi Arabia did not immediately comment, and no damage has been confirmed. Reports differ even on the station: Shafaq News said No. 11.
This is not the first such claim. In late October, Reuters reported Houthi claims of attacks on East-West pumping stations and an Aramco facility in Yanbu, none confirmed by Riyadh. Saudi Arabia did confirm a 9 November strike on the pipeline in the Medina region. An energy ministry official told the state news agency SPA it caused a “limited fire” and that “pipeline operations were unaffected”, Al Jazeera reported.
Missiles are also falling nearer the Red Sea coast. Saudi civil defence said debris from two intercepted ballistic missiles landed in the Mecca region on Wednesday: in Sabuhah village, about 35km northeast of the Grand Mosque, and in Wadi al-Maghmas, about 21km east, Reuters reported. Civil defence said: “This hostile targeting of civilian objects constitutes a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.” The Houthis deny targeting Mecca or Medina. Reuters also noted the fighting threatens the Bab el-Mandeb, the strait at the southern end of the Red Sea.
No deal on the table
Diplomacy offers no date to plan around. On Thursday, President Trump said “we don’t need a deal with Iran”, CBS News reported. He wrote that “Those days have long since passed”, and said the US holds Iran’s money and its strait.
In Tehran, Hossein Taeb, head of the Basij militia, said Iran would set the agenda for talks only once its conditions are met: “the main issue is the fulfillment of the conditions set by the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, told Al Jazeera that US officials had asked Russia’s President Putin to get Iran to talk directly with Washington. The White House did not directly respond.
Markets have priced this in. Global oil prices are more than 40% above pre-war levels, the risk firm Ambrey said, according to CBS.
What forwarders should do now
Our reading of the week, for anyone moving cargo to or from the Gulf:
- The outer ports are where the queue is. Khor Fakkan, Fujairah and Sohar are the release valve, and 211 ships are already waiting near them. Expect longer anchorage waits before a box is even discharged. Build that into quoted transit times rather than promising a date.
- Check where your cargo ends its sea leg. Carriers already discharge Gulf cargo short of its booked port. Make sure clients know who pays for the extra trucking, storage and demurrage (charges for keeping a container past the free time) when the port changes.
- Do not assume the Red Sea is the clean alternative. Jeddah takes rerouted cargo, but missile fire now reaches western Saudi Arabia. Insurers will notice. Shippers should expect war-risk cover and surcharges on that route to stay firm too.
- Ask about equipment. Platts reported carriers are reluctant to send equipment to the Middle East while containers sit stuck in the region. Export bookings from the Gulf may struggle to find equipment even when space exists.
- Read Iranian claims carefully. Mine and “unauthorised route” claims are hard to verify, but they shape owners’ and insurers’ decisions regardless. Track UKMTO and JMIC notices, not just headlines.
Our prediction
We do not think this week changes the direction of travel. If anything, it confirms it. 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, the US military command for the region, to report at least one more non-tanker merchant ship disabled by the end of December.
Sources
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