Crew abandon tanker in Strait of Hormuz, ship hit off UAE

The UKMTO said that a tanker had been struck by an unknown projectile in the Strait of Hormuz and that according to the company CSO the crew had abandoned the vessel and were currently in a lifeboat. There were no details of damage to the tanker from the attack.   The attack took place 8nm northeast of Limah, Oman and was reported at 20:10 hrs UTC on 20 July. UKMTO said the authorities were investigating and there was no environmental impact.     Earlier at 23:30 hrs UTC on 19 July a vessel’s steering gear was reported to have been damaged after it was struck by unknown projectile 17nm east of Dibba in the UAE. All the crew of the ship were reported to be safe and there was no environmental impact. According to reports the vessel involved was the Dynacom Tankers VLCC Acheloos making it the second tanker from the George Procopiou controlled company to be attacked in the space of 24 hours.        The Dynacom product tanker Kavomaleas was hit in the Strait of Hormuz on 19 July which caused a fire on board and the crew abandoning ship.

Meanwhile the US continued to carry out strikes designed to degrade the Iranian’s ability to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.   US Central Command (Centcom) said the latest round of strikes on 20 July hit, “Iranian military command centers, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and air defense systems to degrade Iran's ability to continue attacking commercial vessels flowing through the Strait of Hormuz”.   US Centcom said that transits of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz continued and US forces had facilitated around 900 vessel crossings of the waterway since early May.      However, transit numbers have fallen off sharply since the MoU between the US and Iran collapsed and hostilities in the region ramped up again. According to an update issued on 20 July by Clarksons Research Head of Global Research Steven Gordon were back to 90% below pre-conflict levels at an average of 12 crossing per day over the previous five days.  

The vessels making transits were generally smaller in size and down more than 95% in tonnage terms compared to pre-conflict on 28 February. Crude oil flows have fallen to average of 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) moving through the Strait compared to 10 million bpd in early July. Gordon said that no “mainstream” VLGCs had left the Gulf in 10 days while no laden Qatari LNG carriers appear to have transited the Strait in nearly two weeks.