Strait of Hormuz Traffic Near Standstill After Iran Hits Vessels

The UK Maritime Trade Operations said it had received a report of an incident northwest of Kumzar, Oman, in which a vessel was on fire after being struck by an unknown projectile. The blaze hasn't been extinguished and the ship is adrift, UKTMO said in a statement, without identifying the vessel.

The targeting of vessels will likely raise fresh concerns over the safety of ships transiting Hormuz while hugging the Omani coast. Many transit with their transponders switched off, at times with US military support. Iran has approved a route further to the north that runs close to its coastline.

One of the ships possibly targeted by Iran could be the oil tanker Kavomaleas, which started signaling that it was anchored near the tip of Oman's Musandam Peninsula on Monday. The previous broadcast from the vessel was in the Gulf of Oman early Sunday, suggesting the ship had been transiting through the strait into the Persian Gulf with its transponder off. Greece's Dynacom Tankers Management manages Kavomaleas, and fixtures seen by Bloomberg show it was chartered to pick up a cargo in the Persian Gulf over the weekend. The company didn't immediately respond to an emailed request for comment sent outside business hours. Dynacom was among the first shipowners to get tankers out of the gulf with their transponders off.

The flare-up in violence in the Middle East has raised concerns about deepening disruptions to crucial energy flows from the Persian Gulf to global customers. That includes liquefied natural gas. Oil and European gas prices jumped on Monday after the weekend attacks before paring gains.