State media in Oman said Sunday an oil tanker off its coast had been targeted – Copyright UGC\/AFP –<\/p>\n
Maersk, the major container shipping company, said Sunday it was halting passage through the Suez Canal and the narrow Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf, next to Iran, for \u201csafety\u201d reasons.<\/p>\n
The Danish group was the latest of several shipping groups to make similar announcements after Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards declared the strait closed on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have decided\u2026 to pause future Trans-Suez sailings through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait for the time being,\u201d Maersk said in an online advisory.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are suspending all vessel crossings in the Strait of Hormuz until further notice,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe safety of our crews, vessels and customers\u2019 cargo remains our key priority.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Strait of Hormuz is a strategic waterway through which passes nearly a quarter of the world\u2019s seaborne oil supplies, as well as a significant amount of cargo to and from Gulf ports.<\/p>\n
Egypt\u2019s Suez Canal is the region\u2019s other vital waterway, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, a long relied-on shortcut from Europe to Asia\u2019s ports on the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n
Maersk said it would be rerouting ships around the Cape of Good Hope \u2014 the southern tip of Africa \u2014 adding thousands of miles to the journey.<\/p>\n
It also said it would be closing its offices in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u2018Maximum caution\u2019 \u2013<\/p>\n
MSC, another big shipping company, told its vessels in the Gulf \u201cto proceed to designated safe shelter areas until further notice\u201d.<\/p>\n
State media in Oman, which sits on the other side of the strait, said Sunday an oil tanker off its coast had been targeted and four of its crew hurt.<\/p>\n
And the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) Centre said Sunday that another ship, this one off the UAE\u2019s coast also near the Strait of Hormuz, reported being hit \u201cby an unknown projectile causing a fire\u201d.<\/p>\n
International Maritime Organization chief Arsenio Dominguez said in a statement Sunday: \u201cI urge all shipping companies to exercise maximum caution.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere possible, vessels should avoid transiting the affected region until conditions improve,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Already on Saturday, two other major shipping firms had warned its vessels away from the area for security reasons.<\/p>\n
German shipowners Hapag-Lloyd, the fifth largest in the world, said it was suspending traffic by its vessels through the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
And France\u2019s CMA CGM told its vessels in the Gulf to \u201ctake shelter\u201d and also suspended passage through the Suez Canal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"State media in Oman said Sunday an oil tanker off its coast had been targeted – Copyright UGC\/AFP…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[224],"tags":[2916,18124,2271,3126,245,3661,652],"class_list":["post-28823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-maersk","tag-conflict","tag-hormuz","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-maersk","tag-shipping","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}