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IRGC strikes under escort
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it struck two oil tankers attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz under the “air escort” of the U.S. military, while four other tankers “quickly changed course and returned to their previous positions.”
“four other tankers "quickly changed course and returned to their previous positions"”
Kurdistan24 said the IRGC described the two vessels as “non-compliant oil tankers” that were hit and forced to stop, adding that the Guards said the tankers attempted to transit via “an undeclared route.”
The Guardian reported that Iran’s IRGC said the “non-compliant oil tankers … were struck and brought to a halt,” as Donald Trump gathered his cabinet to discuss the stalling war and rising prices.
Reuters’ account in Insurance Business said neither American nor British maritime security monitors had independently confirmed the strikes as of that morning, and US Central Command disputed suggestions that Iran controls the waterway.
Competing claims and politics
Kurdistan24 said the IRGC did not provide details on the tankers’ identities, their flags, or whether there were any casualties or damage, and noted there was no immediate comment from the United States or the operators of the vessels.
The Guardian framed the same IRGC claim alongside the dispute over routes, saying Iran and the US have said ships should pass through the Strait of Hormuz via two competing routes, with Iran bombing ships that take the southern route and the US bombing ships that violate its blockade.
Insurance Business reported that President Trump summoned his cabinet to Camp David to weigh next steps in a war now in its sixth month, and said the oil market treated the reports as credible as Brent rose toward $89.90 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate approached $84.40.
The Guardian added that a Reuters-Ipsos poll found one in three Americans support the war, and said the US Senate narrowly rejected a symbolic vote to express disapproval of the war in a 49-50 vote.
Insurance, shipping, and risk
Insurance Business said the strikes arrived as marine war-risk insurance rates had only recently begun to soften, with war-risk premiums for a Hormuz transit easing from a crisis peak of roughly 10 percent of a vessel's hull value to a range of about 3 to 8 percent.
“war-risk premiums for a Hormuz transit had eased from a crisis peak of roughly 10 percent”
It also said the Lloyd’s Market Association reported that capacity had never left the market and that only pricing had changed, while owners and captains were judging the physical risk to crews too high to sail.
The Guardian reported that the strait has been almost completely closed to traffic since Iran and the US returned to fighting two weeks ago, sending energy prices soaring, and said on Thursday crude oil pushed past $90 a barrel when the US struck Iran in retaliation for its targeting of US bases in Jordan.
Insurance Business warned that until a dispute over Iran’s planned toll regime for the strait through an entity it calls the Persian Gulf Strait Authority is resolved, underwriters have little basis to treat any ceasefire announcement as a durable change in risk instead of a pause between incidents.
