The head of Japanese shipping company Mitsui OSK Lines expects disruption in the Strait of Hormuz to last longer than previously assumed, with recent attacks elevating the risk for tankers attempting to move oil through the waterway.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven the current situation, it\u2019s difficult to see operations resuming in any form by the end of the year,\u201d CEO Jotaro Tamura said in an interview. \u201cThe situation continues to be well beyond the level of risk we can accept.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clashes between the U.S. and Iran over control of Hormuz have intensified after a period of relative calm, raising the threat for vessels carrying Middle Eastern crude to global markets. After managing to move their ships out of the Gulf after the war began, risk-averse Japanese shipowners have largely avoided the region for safety reasons.<\/p>\n
The disruption has forced Japan\u2019s oil refiners \u2014 which before the war sourced more than 90% of their crude from the Middle East \u2014 to seek alternative supplies and routes, including the U.S., while drawing from the nation\u2019s stockpiles to stave off shortages and price spikes.<\/p>\n
Mitsui OSK had previously assumed a phased resumption of Hormuz transit from October, followed by a return to normal operations from January. That timeline now appears likely to slip, Tamura said. The resumption of crossings \u201cis likely to be pushed back,\u201d he said, \u201cbut at this stage, it\u2019s difficult to say by how much.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Japanese tankers have stayed away, other vessels have transited Hormuz in recent months, sometimes switching off their transponders to avoid detection. As of last week, about 6 million to 8 million barrels of crude were crossing the strait every day, according to oil traders\u2019 estimates, although that was before the latest strikes.<\/p>\n
For Mitsui OSK to resume regular transits, Tamura said the company would need confidence that safe passage could be sustained across multiple voyages, rather than assessing the risk on a vessel-by-vessel, day-by-day basis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sailing with transponders turned off shouldn\u2019t become the norm, he added, because that would mean ships were operating on the assumption that an attack could occur.<\/p>\n
On a more positive note, as Japanese refiners diversify crude supplies, new routes are opening up for the nation\u2019s shipping lines.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tamura said Mitsui OSK was seeing stronger demand from the U.S. and West Africa, echoing comments from the CEO of rival Nippon Yusen, Takaya Soga, who said last month that the company was in talks with refiners to help import oil from Latin America and Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The head of Japanese shipping company Mitsui OSK Lines expects disruption in the Strait of Hormuz to last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[28],"tags":[102,54831,49,7631,150,101],"class_list":["post-276459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-strait-of-hormuz","tag-hormuz","tag-hormuz-tanker-attack","tag-middle-east","tag-mitsui-osk-lines","tag-shipping","tag-strait-of-hormuz"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117206459626705342","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276459","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=276459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}