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Iran says two supertankers with 4 million barrels are ablaze in Hormuz, as India's Gulf crude imports overtake Russia's
The Revolutionary Guards say two supertankers took the southern route they call unauthorised and were stopped by explosions, a day after India's shipping minister reported an Indian seafarer hurt in another Gulf attack. Yet crude from the Gulf is again flowing to India faster than Russian oil.
Key points
- Iran's Guards say two supertankers carrying over four million barrels burned after explosions on an unauthorised route.
- A commercial ship was hit by a projectile off Ras al-Khaimah, with an engine-room fire and no known injuries.
- India's November imports from the Gulf, 2.1 million barrels a day, have passed Russia's 1.8 million for the first time since the war began.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Thursday that two supertankers carrying more than four million barrels of oil exploded and caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz after they took a southern route that Tehran says is unauthorised. The claim, made by the Guards’ navy and carried by state-linked outlets, came as a separate commercial ship was reported hit by a projectile off the United Arab Emirates and as India’s crude imports from the Gulf passed its Russian purchases for the first time since the war began in February.
What the Guards say
According to the IRGC Navy’s public relations office, the tankers entered the southern route “last night”, ignored repeated warnings from its Hormuz traffic control centre that the route was unauthorised and unsafe, and were stopped by “powerful explosions”. It warned that any vessel that switches off its navigation systems and cooperates with US forces on that route “will face the same fate”.
The statement does not name the ships, their flags, owners or crews, and gives no casualty figures. Nothing in it has been independently confirmed. Iran’s navy had earlier said a tanker struck a naval mine in what it called a prohibited area in the east of the strait, and an earlier Guards statement spoke of three tankers on fire on Tuesday.
At 5:48 am on Thursday, the maritime risk firm Ambrey said a commercial ship was hit by an unknown projectile about 14 nautical miles off Ras al-Khaimah, causing an engine-room fire, with no known injuries or pollution. It is not clear whether that ship was one of those Iran described.
Talks stalled
The attacks come while mediators try to bring Washington and Tehran to terms. Ghalibaf said in an interview that the US must “make and announce” a decision on Iran’s latest proposal, and Tehran has rejected a US plan to move its 60 per cent enriched uranium stockpile to a third country. Security chief Mohsen Rezaei said Iran would not part with “even a single particle” of enriched material. Basij chief Hossein Taeb said Iran would decide on negotiations only once its conditions are met.
Those conditions, set out in September, include an end to hostilities on all fronts including Lebanon and Gaza, sanctions relief, an end to the US naval blockade, an Iran-Oman system to control Hormuz traffic, compensation for war damage and release of frozen assets. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called them “unacceptable”. Iran has offered to cut the proposed ceasefire implementation period from seven days to two.
President Donald Trump said on Wednesday at a Veterans Day event that the US has already won, but that it is “just a question of when we want to end it”. He wants “total victory, not a 93% victory”. Our earlier report on Rubio’s remarks at the G7 in Paris shows the same line on the economic campaign.
The India angle
Indian crews have already paid a price. Shipping Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said this week that an Indian seafarer was hurt when a projectile hit the Liberia-flagged Fujairah Energy; see our report on the Fujairah Energy attack. The Ministry of External Affairs says 23 Indians, 15 of them seafarers, have died in the West Asia conflict. No report so far says Indians were aboard the two tankers Iran named.
Yet the cargo keeps moving. According to Kpler ship-tracking data, India’s imports of crude by Gulf routes through Hormuz reached 2.1 million barrels a day in November so far, against 1.8 million from Russia, the first time Gulf supply has led since the war began. Flows had fallen to 247,000 barrels a day in April from an average of 2.8 million in February. Gulf producers are offering competitive prices and moving crude through Hormuz before transferring cargoes to buyers’ tankers outside the strait, while Russian oil has become costlier because of freight and longer voyages. Russian overseas shipments fell by 40,000 barrels a day to 3.63 million in the four weeks to November 8, tanker-tracking data show, as Ukrainian attacks hit Russian energy infrastructure. The November Gulf figure is a partial-month estimate.
Why it matters
India has relied on Hormuz for a large share of its crude, and global oil prices remain more than 40 per cent above their level before the war began in late February. Each new attack raises insurance and freight costs and puts Indian crews, a large part of the world’s merchant workforce, at risk, whatever the flag. The US blockades Iranian ports and escorts tankers through the strait; it has said mines have been cleared, even as Iran claims a tanker struck one this week.
What next
Ship operators and maritime security agencies are yet to confirm which vessels burned and whether anyone was hurt. Washington’s answer to Iran’s latest proposal is awaited, and the Gulf export and Hormuz traffic numbers for the rest of November will show whether India’s shift back to Gulf crude holds.