Confusion as Iran Guards turn away three ships from Strait of Hormuz

20% of global oil depends on this one narrow waterway. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Friday that they had turned back three ships trying to transit the Strait of Hormuz, adding the route was closed to vessels travelling to and from ports linked to its “enemies”. “This morning, following the lies of the corrupt US president claiming that the Strait of Hormuz was open, three container ships of different nationalities…

were turned back after a warning from the IRGC Navy,” the Guards said on their Sepah News website. “The movement of any vessel ‘to and from’ ports of origin belonging to allies and supporters of the Zionist-American enemies, to any destination and through any corridor, is prohibited,” it added. The move raises fresh doubt about which vessels are able to transit the strategic waterway, which is a conduit for a fifth of world oil and gas supplies in normal times, as well as other vital products.

A total of 26 ships have been approved by Iran to transit the strait recently, using a route around Larak Island just off the country’s coast, dubbed the “Tehran toll booth” by leading shipping journal Lloyd’s List. Most were Greek- and Chinese-owned, as well as other Indian-, Pakistani- and Syrian-owned vessels, the journal said. The new developments “suggest the situation remains highly unstable”, a data analyst at energy market intelligence firm Kpler, Rebecca Gerdes, said in a statement.

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The consultancy identified two container ships belonging to Chinese firm COSCO that had attempted to cross the Strait on Friday, but had turned around. The two vessels had been stuck in the Gulf since the start of the war, sparked by US and Israeli attacks on February 28. The identity of the third ship referred to in the Guards statement was unknown.

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