Hormuz tanker attacks mount even as Gulf crude exports recover

UK Maritime Trade Operations reported five separate incidents involving commercial shipping in or near the Strait of Hormuz on Monday³. It also disclosed two previously unknown ship strikes over the weekend, which brought the running weekly total higher². TradeWinds counted 11 ships hit in a week², and an outlet linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said 13 tankers had been targeted over seven days¹.

Volumes went the other way. Gulf oil exports exceeded pre-war levels even as ships faced threats⁷, and oil prices fell as Middle East exports recovered⁴. Semafor reported that oil dropped as Hormuz traffic rebounded, alongside G7 nations releasing energy stockpiles in a bid to tame surging diesel prices⁸.

Iran’s own account is part of the public record here. An outlet linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps put the number of tankers targeted at 13 over seven days¹, a higher figure than the 11 vessels TradeWinds counted over a comparable period².

Why it matters to investors

The two signals are not contradictory, they are separate markets. Renewed tanker attacks around the strait are keeping shipping, insurance, routing and security risks elevated⁴, while the barrels themselves are moving again⁷. Crude can fall on restored flow at the same time as the cost of carrying it rises.

The cushion behind those flows is thin. Aramco chief executive Amin Nasser said the Hormuz disruption has left the global oil supply cushion scarily thin⁶, and that global inventories are scarily thin even as crude flows from the Middle East recover⁵. Nasser also said the company’s local supply chain had provided more than 90 per cent of the materials used in asset restoration⁶.

The freight and insurance channel is where the cost shows up first. UK Maritime Trade Operations logged five commercial shipping incidents in or near the strait in a single day³, and the risks named in coverage of the oil move were shipping, insurance, routing and security rather than crude availability⁴. Those are operating costs for carriers and charterers, not a price signal in the barrel.

What to watch

The sell-side timeline is long. Goldman Sachs expects Strait of Hormuz flows to normalise late next year, with crude stabilising at $80 per barrel⁹. That implies a year of elevated shipping risk rather than a quick resolution^4,9.

Three things to track: whether the weekly count of struck vessels keeps climbing^2,3, whether inventories rebuild from the levels Nasser called scarily thin^5,6, and whether the G7 stockpile releases that helped push prices down are extended⁸. Note that the tanker tallies differ by source, at 11 ships from one count and 13 from another^1,2.