A Qatari LNG tanker was still stuck off Oman on Wednesday awaiting salvage operations, shipping data showed, a day after it was hit by a projectile, while the U.S. military said two other tankers had been targeted by Iran in recent days.
The attacks on the tankers prompted Washington to revoke a license allowing Iran to sell oil and U.S. forces to strike Iranian targets overnight. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday an interim agreement to end the war with Iran was “over,” comments that triggered a 5% jump in global oil prices.
The head of the U.N. shipping agency condemned the attacks over the past 48 hours and urged parties to allow the evacuation of stranded ships.
At least four oil and gas tankers have turned back from trying to transit the strait, ship-tracking data showed on Wednesday. LNG tankers are among the highest-risk ships in the region due to the high value of the vessels and their cargoes.
Risk of Tanker Exploding
Qatari LNG tanker Al Rekayyat, loaded with liquefied natural gas, was hit on its port side overnight on Tuesday, one source said, while another briefed on the matter said the vessel was at risk of exploding due to a fire in its engine room.
Efforts are continuing to extinguish the fire, an industry source familiar with the matter told Reuters. All the crew have been safely evacuated.
The LNG stored in the tanker’s tanks remains intact and there is no breach of those tanks, the industry source said.
Another industry source assessed that as long as the vessel was not subject to any further attack, it was likely to remain in its current state and not explode.
“Breaching a main tank would be catastrophic,” the second industry source added.
Two vessels — a tug boat and a separate service ship — are currently near the tanker, which is located near the entrance of the Strait of Hormuz and close to Oman’s coast, the LSEG and MarineTraffic ship tracking data showed.
Nakilat, also known as Qatar Gas Transport Company Ltd, which owns the Al Rekayyat tanker, did not respond to a request for comment, nor did QatarEnergy.
Qatar’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that Iran bore full legal responsibility for the attack, and summoned the deputy Iranian ambassador to protest the targeting of the tanker.
It is the first time an LNG ship from Qatar, a mediator in talks between the United States and Iran, has been struck since the start of the Iran war on February 28.
‘Severe’ Threat Level Declared in Strait
The U.S. Navy-led Joint Maritime Information Center on Tuesday raised the threat level to transit the strait to “severe” from “substantial” following the attacks on the Al Rekayyat and the two other tankers.
One of the other two ships targeted was the Saudi-flagged crude oil supertanker Wedyan.
