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The recent strike poses a threat to efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz
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Tehran has struck a vessel in the Strait of Hormuz as countries try to reopen the oil route.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards attacked a Singapore-flagged commercial vessel with a drone on Thursday, a U.S. official confirmed to CBS News. According to an advisory from the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations Centre, the ship’s bridge was damaged after it was struck on its starboard side off the coast of Dahit, Oman, though no casualties or environmental impacts were reported.
The attack poses an immediate challenge to U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to reopen the critical shipping corridor, which normally carries one-fifth of the world’s oil.
Meanwhile, U.S. secretary of state Marco Rubio has dismissed concerns raised by the UAE over an Iranian toll on the Strait of Hormuz as “semantics.”
“You can call it a toll, you can call it a fee, at the end of the day it’s all semantics,” Rubio said during a visit to Bahrain, where he is meeting the foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.
Washington has sought to reassure the region that no country, including Iran, will be allowed to charge tolls for shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi said safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz could not be guaranteed without coordination with Iran, and that failure to coordinate could result in the suspension of any designated route.
The comments posted on social media platform X on Friday came after Oman, in coordination with the International Maritime Organization, designated temporary routes for passage through the strait.
The European Union’s oil co-ordination group said on Friday that while flows of oil were slowly recovering following a preliminary pact to try to end the Iran war, it would nevertheless take some time for those supplies to reach Europe.
“The Oil Coordination Group noted reports that trade flows are slowly beginning to recover following the memorandum of understanding signed between the United States and Iran last week. However, the group also noted that it will take time for supplies from the region to reach Europe,” it said.
“As regards crude oil, the group noted that the situation is stable for the time being, largely owing to global stock draws in the last months,” it added in a statement.
The UN’s International Maritime Organisation paused its plans to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday after a vessel reported an attack.
Taiwan’s Evergreen Marine said on Friday its ship was hit close to Oman by an “unknown object” while on a route recommended by the British navy agency UKMTO.
Two US officials told Reuters that Iran had fired on the ship, while Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority, which Tehran established to manage requests for ships to travel through the strait, said vessels outside routes it has set will not be guaranteed safe passage.
The IMO was helping to get hundreds of stranded ships and thousands of seafarers out of the strait where they had been stranded for months since the start of the war on February 28.
It decided “to temporarily pause its implementation in order to reconfirm that the necessary safety guarantees continue to be in place for the ships on our evacuation list and all those in the region,” IMO Secretary General Arsenio Dominguez said in a statement.
The IMO said the ship in the suspected attack was not part of its evacuation initiative, a voluntary option it launched on Tuesday to enable ships and their crew to sail out of the Gulf using two routes — one via Iranian waters and the other via Omani waters, with US oversight.
Oil prices have eased again following a recent spike over renewed clashes in the Strait of Hormuz.
Brent crude fell 1.8 per cent on Friday after rising 4 per cent after the International Maritime Organisation said it was pausing its planned evacuation of ships trapped around the channel.
That decision came after a cargo vessel reported being struck by an ‘unknown projectile’ while trying to transit the strait near the Omani coast.
Iran’s Kish airport has resumed operations following a four-month suspension, NourNews reports, in a sign of renewed optimism around an end to the conflict.
Iran’s foreign ministry says yesterday’s joint statement from the US and the Gulf Cooperation Council contains “interventionist, irresponsible and provocative” positions, warning the US military presence in the region is a source of insecurity and division.
Marco Rubio on Thursday reiterated the US’s commitment to GCC security, and foreign ministers from GCC member states “emphasized that lasting regional peace and security requires addressing the full spectrum of Iran’s threats”.
In comments today, Iran urges the Gulf States to prevent the use of their territory for any future attacks against it.
They also reiterate that Hormuz shipping will be governed with Oman.
The IAEA’s top official claimed again on Friday that the interim US-Iran peace accord gives UN nuclear inspectors access to Iran, after the Islamic Republic said it did not.
“There is an agreement and to comply with that agreement, the IAEA will have to have access and inspect,” Rafael Grossi told a press conference in Japan on Friday. “We hope to be there soon.”
Grossi said that inspectors have already held an initial exchange with Iranian officials to discuss technical issues. The first goal of any visit to Iran would be to check whether IAEA seals on previously inspected material remained intact and whether any material was missing, he said.
The comments come after Iran’s deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi said on Wednesday there were no plans to grant access to inspectors.
Saudi Aramco has resumed oil loading today at its Ras Tanura terminal in the Gulf after a near four-month halt, shipping data from LSEG showed, in a sign that Middle Eastern producers are pushing forward with plans to boost exports despite a ship attack in the Strait of Hormuz.
Ras Tanura sits on Saudi Arabia’s eastern coast on the Gulf and is west of the Strait of Hormuz. It used to export more than 5 million bpd of crude before the conflict.
The country’s largest domestic 550,000 bpd refinery is also located at Ras Tanura, which was shut during the war as a precautionary measure.
Aramco last loaded a cargo from the Ras Tanura port for China on 8 March, LSEG data showed, and had to divert its exports to the Red Sea port of Yanbu after the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz during its war with the US and Israel prevented ships from entering the Gulf.
The war has caused Saudi crude exports to slump to about 4 million bpd in the past three months, the data showed, from more than 7 million bpd in February.
Two Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCC) controlled by Saudi’s shipping arm Bahri were seen loading crude at Ras Tanura, the world’s biggest oil port, while another waited nearby, the data showed. Each VLCC is capable of loading 2 million barrels of oil.
South Korean president Lee Jae Myung said on X on Friday that three additional vessels are set to depart the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend.
He added that this will leave five South Korean cargo ships trapped in the key waterway since the beginning of the US-Israel war with Iran.
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