\n\tBy Weilun Soon<\/p>\n
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\n\tVisible traffic through the Strait of Hormuz appeared at a near standstill Monday after Iran targeted vessels in the narrow waterway as the US continued its wave of strikes on the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n
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\n\tA Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier was among the few vessels that appeared to attempt a transit, turning off its transponder while approaching the strait near Oman from the Persian Gulf, according to ship-tracking data. A liquefied petroleum gas carrier that\u2019s been marked as being part of the dark fleet involved in Iranian exports also appeared to approach the strait.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\n\tAnother bulk carrier that\u2019s registered with Marshall Islands began signaling from the Gulf of Oman after indicating that it was in the Persian Gulf early Sunday, suggesting that it had crossed Hormuz with its transponder off.<\/p>\n
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\n\tOn Sunday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps issued a statement that four vessels switched off their transponders and attempted to transit Hormuz via an \u201cunsafe route\u201d after disregarding warnings. Two were \u201cmet with accidents and were stopped in their tracks,\u201d Iranian media reported, citing the IRGC.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\n\tThe UK Maritime Trade Operations said it had a 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\u2019t been extinguished and the ship is adrift, UKTMO said in a statement, without identifying the vessel.<\/p>\n
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\n\tThe targeting of vessels will likely raise fresh concerns over the safety of ships transiting Hormuz while hugging the Omani coast \u2014 often with their transponders switched off, and at times with US military support. Iran has approved a route further to the north that runs close to its coastline.<\/p>\n
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\tOne 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\u2019s 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 turned off.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\n\tGreece\u2019s 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\u2019t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment sent outside of business hours. Dynacom was among the first shipowners to get tankers out of the gulf with their transponders off.<\/p>\n
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\n\tThe flare-up in violence in the West Asia has raised concerns about deepening disruptions to crucial energy flows \u2014 including liquefied natural gas \u2014 from the Persian Gulf to global customers. Oil and European gas prices jumped on Monday after the weekend attacks before paring gains.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Weilun Soon \u00a0
Visible traffic through the Strait of Hormuz appeared at a near standstill…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[26],"tags":[2276,405,34,424,1364,181,39,150,101,2483,1503,4068],"class_list":["post-214709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-persian-gulf","tag-energy-markets","tag-global-oil-supply","tag-iran","tag-irgc","tag-oil-tankers","tag-oman","tag-persian-gulf","tag-shipping","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-ukmto","tag-us-strikes","tag-vessel-traffic"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116951954337060811","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}