US strikes three Iranian tankers as Tehran plans a Hormuz exclusion zone

US forces struck three Iranian oil tankers on Saturday after Iran fired ballistic missiles at two US Navy warships, US Central Command said¹. CENTCOM said it retaliated after a US aircraft carrier and a guided-missile destroyer evaded the missiles¹. US fighters and drones carried out the strikes³.

The attacks permanently disabled the M/T Downy and the M/T Stark 1, and completely destroyed the M/T Kylo in the Gulf of Oman after the crew was warned to abandon ship, CENTCOM said¹. Central Command said on Sunday that the Kylo had sunk¹². The Maritime Executive recorded the same tally of one tanker destroyed and two damaged¹³.

A US official told Axios this week that a tanker-for-tanker policy had been approved by President Trump, and the exchange has now passed the six-month mark¹. Adm. Brad Cooper, the CENTCOM commander, addressed a warning directly to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps³.

Tehran’s answer

Iran’s top security chief Mohsen Rezaei said on Sunday that his country would establish a prohibited zone near the Strait of Hormuz in the coming days⁵. A senior Iranian official said the exclusion zone would sit outside the strait and target vessels Tehran identifies⁴.

Iran said on Sunday that it struck an unmanned US vessel trying to enter the strait, a claim the US military dismissed^6,7. Iran has warned of a faster, heavier and more painful response to further attacks¹⁰. The US and Iran traded attacks on oil tankers over the weekend, intensifying pressure on energy flows through the strait².

What it means for cargo

The Strait of Hormuz carries about a fifth of global oil and LNG supplies⁹. Reuters reports that Iran’s leverage over the waterway is waning as the US economic squeeze bites⁹. That is the calculation on which the American strategy rests, and it is being tested cargo by cargo.

The blockade is now a large operation in its own right. CENTCOM said on Sunday that it has carried out 92 vessel interceptions enforcing the campaign against Iran¹¹.

Other chokepoints are tightening at the same time. The Panama Canal Authority is delaying a planned draft cut for big ships for the second time in a matter of weeks¹³. For shipowners and charterers, the risk premium is no longer confined to one strait.