Free Republic

There have been 27 attacks on commercial ships so far in October, according to the International Maritime Organization. There were 22 in March, as well as attacks on an offshore rig and two tugs, according to a list of attacks compiled by USNI News.Despite the number of attacks, ships are continuing to sail through the strait. There were 104 non-Iranian-linked vessels that sailed through between Oct. 5-11, during which there were 12 attacks, according to data from London-based maritime intelligence firm Lloyd’s List. Of those, six occurred on Oct. 11, according to the IMO.While Iran is at fault for the...

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatens to strike American bases across the Middle East if the US military continues to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz. “The US military must know that if this trend continues, the conflict will extend to its bases in the region,” the Guards say in a statement on their Sepah News website. “This is a serious warning,” they added. Iran claims control over Hormuz, a strategic shipping route through which one-fifth of the world’s oil supplies passed before war broke out in February. It regularly attacks ships that attempt to navigate...

Oil flows out of the Persian Gulf in October nearly returned to levels seen before the start of the Iran war, but traders remain wary about a fragile recovery. Total crude exports in the region, or flows coming out of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, recently recovered to within 10% of their previous levels in January and February, according to data compiled by TankerTrackers.com, a maritime intelligence firm tracking crude oil shipments (see chart below).

A ship has been struck in the Strait of Hormuz nearly every day this month, according to the International Maritime Organization. Between Oct. 1 and Tuesday, nine ships – mostly crude oil tankers – were struck in the Strait of Hormuz or off the coast of Oman, according to the IMO. Two additional ships were hit since, with one struck on Wednesday and another struck on Friday, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations. Wednesday’s attack was on an unnamed tanker off the coast of Madinat ash Shamal, Qatar, in the Persian Gulf. Friday’s attack was on an unnamed...

Iran announces a large oil tanker has hit a naval mine while exiting the Strait of Hormuz through the US-backed southern Omani corridor, with a massive explosion and fire in the engine room. It is the second such incident under 24 hours. A crude oil supertanker exploded and caught fire after it hit a mine while trying to leave the Strait of Hormuz using an "unauthorised and dangerous route", Iranian media Press TV has reported. The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in a statement said the crude oil supertanker had switched off its navigation and global positioning systems while trying...

Sailors are reportedly being offered as much as $25,000 a trip to move trapped oil through the dangerous, war-rattled Persian Gulf – meaning producers are spending up to $40 million total for a multi-day trip... The jaw-dropping payments – sometimes worth two or three times a sailor’s typical monthly salary – are an attempt to convince crew members to risk the potentially deadly strikes... Fresh data on Monday showed the payouts are working, as crude exports through the Strait of Hormuz reached 16.5 million barrels per day in September – far above lows of 5 million barrels a day in...

Ever since the start of the Iran war, the Democrats and their media allies have been rooting against America and President Trump. This was particularly true regarding the Strait of Hormuz, a major global economic shipping channel through which much of the world's oil (and other commerce) flows. Late last month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio laid out what the Strait, and its control, means for not just the United States, but the world, saying that allowing Iran — especially a nuclear Iran — to control the Strait would allow the Islamic nation to control energy for countless nations. But...

Sal covers the reports of 8 marines wounded in an attack on a "non-US Navy" ship. W*T*H: Did the U.S. Military Turn a Civilian Freighter into an Armed Escort?

Everyone is watching the wrong thing this morning. The headline is that President Trump rejected Iran’s proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend. Oil jumped. Brent is back above $106. The pundits are calling it another setback for peace. They’re missing what actually happened. Iran offered to reopen the Strait within seven days if the U.S. lifted its naval blockade, released frozen assets, and eased sanctions. Six months ago, that offer would have been taken seriously. Hormuz was the single most valuable card Tehran held. Twenty percent of the world’s oil ran through it, and Iran could...

Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has moved back toward pre-war levels ... [Iranian] Oil exports have also collapsed ... Inflation is nearing 70%, food prices have more than doubled, and unemployment is above 9% ... youth unemployment at 20.1%

Eight US Marines were injured in an Iranian attack on a ship in the Strait of Hormuz on September 14, NBC reported Sunday evening, citing three US sources. The Marines were not seriously injured by the Iranian cruise missile hit on the vessel, but they sustained smoke inhalation and showed symptoms of concussions, including headaches, according to the report. The Marines were not on a US Navy ship, but the officials did not share what type of ship it was. All eight service members returned to duty soon after the attack.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has asked for another ceasefire, and President Donald Trump has said no. While Trump has actively sought ceasefires in the past, this time he had no patience for the Iranian demands, and that’s all to the good, as nothing good could possibly come from giving the Islamic Republic more time to regroup and strengthen its forces. The New York Post reported Friday that Trump has “rejected a seven-day cease-fire proposed by Iran and expects to resume bombing the country after the midterm elections.” Trump apparently doesn’t think that the conflict with Iran will cost the...

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 22 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Washington and Tehran were moving toward a settlement, while a senior Iranian official said Tehran could reopen the Strait of Hormuz within days if the US eased military pressure and lifted its blockade on Iranian ports.Trump's remarks came just hours after ‌he repeated a threat at the UN General Assembly to annihilate Iran if it failed to strike a deal.Speaking after a meeting with British Prime Minister Andy Burnham at the United Nations ‌in New York, Trump said: "They want to talk to us. They have been...

A senior Iranian official told Reuters on Tuesday that Iran could reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if the United States reduces military pressure and ends its blockade of Iranian ports. The official said Tehran is seeking a formal indication from Washington that it intends to pursue a diplomatic solution, together with an agreed timetable for moving the process forward. The comments come after Iran's military central command said Sunday that it had received information indicating that the US was preparing to resume military operations with assistance from countries in the region. The Iranian military warned that such...

Defying Iran and heading through the Strait of Hormuz is a gamble. But like all the best gambles, it is a lucrative one, so crews are inclined to fancy their odds. To counter the high insurance costs for buyers, countries such as Iraq and Qatar have been offering crude oil at steep discounts. “People just assume one ship in 12 or one ship in 15 is going to get hit by an Iranian drone, but you make enough money on the rest of them,” said Rory Johnston, founder of the market research firm Commodity Context.

This is the first time since Yemen's civil war resumed that strikes have threatened Riyadh.The United States warned on Saturday (Sep 19) that hostilities between Saudi Arabia and Iran-backed Houthis could "escalate rapidly" after a missile attack targeted Riyadh for the first time since the Yemen conflict resumed. US President Donald Trump cut short a weekend at Camp David, a secluded presidential complex in rural Maryland, to return unexpectedly to the White House on Saturday. The White House gave no explanation for the early return, which comes as a new threshold was crossed in the conflict between Saudi Arabia and...

Two days ago, the global media rushed to declare that the Iranians had outplayed Donald Trump and his blockade of Iran in the Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC's proxies in Yemen seized strategic turf in the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, damaging Saudi Arabia's pipeline and sending oil prices higher. The Telegraph reported that the IRGC was "hitting [Trump] where it hurts," while insisting that the Red Sea action effectively countered – or at least paralleled – the US Navy's total blockade of Iranian sea traffic:Iran's leaders were never going to passively submit to slow strangulation. Facing Donald Trump's blockade of their ports...

Saudi Arabia will run out of oil stocks for exports if it doesn't restart its major pipeline to the Red Sea within days, leading to a loss of up to 4% of global supply, Saudi oil buyers and traders said. A further decline in Saudi flows will worsen the global supply crunch, which has already pushed global fuel prices to record highs, spurred inflation around the world and sent U.S. bond yields to the highest levels since the 2008 financial crisis. Since drone attacks forced Saudi Arabia to shut its huge east-west oil pipeline on Friday, Riyadh has not given...

ADEN/DUBAI, Sept 12 - Saudi Arabia has shut down its East-West pipeline after the vital oil conduit came under aerial attack in the widening Middle East war. The world’s largest crude oil exporter temporarily closed the pipeline after a drone attack that both Baghdad and Riyadh said had originated in Iraq, where Iranian-backed militias operate. Iraq dismissed a military commander on Saturday in response to the attack. The 1,200-kilometre (745-mile) pipeline running across the Arabian Peninsula had helped Saudi Arabia to bypass a shipping logjam in the Strait of Hormuz, where tanker traffic has slowed to a trickle due to...

Iran announced Monday it will establish a new “restricted zone” near the Strait of Hormuz within the coming days — as the flailing nation desperately tries to expand its control over the critical chokepoint. The exclusion zone will span from where the US blockade of Iran begins to other areas of the Gulf, Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said on Sunday in an interview with state TV. Rezaei said that any ship that sails into the restricted zone will be placed on a sanctions list. “Any ship that enters this area with the intention of...