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400 ships cannot leave the Gulf. That's six months of war.
Author:Mariusz Dasiewicz
Six months after the Israeli-American strikes on Iran, the Ormuz Strait remains one of the world's most dangerous places of navigation. Nearly 400 ships with about 6,000 sailors still cannot safely leave the Persian Gulf.
In the article
I wrote about the situation in the Ormuz Strait many times, but six months after the beginning of the conflict it is worth returning to it. Not because one groundbreaking incident has occurred, but because after six months it is clear how much the war changed shipping in the region and how far away from its effects.
On February 28, Israel and the United States hit Iran. Tehran responded militarily, and movement by Ormuz Strait He started dying rapidly. Within a few dozen hours, one of the world's most important shipping routes was at the heart of a conflict that no shipowners or insurers could predict.
From expensive insurance to attacks on ships
The first few weeks have shown that this is not just about political threats. There have been attacks on ships, there has been a mine hazard, and there have been premiums for insurance The risk of war has increased rapidly.
At the beginning of March Reuters reported that for some units the rates were higher by more than 1000 percent. The premium, which previously amounted to approximately 0.25% of the ship's value, in the most risky cases reached 3%, which for a large tanker meant even a few million dollars for one passage through the strait.
This cost was not only a problem for shipowners and insurers, but also translated into fuel and other cargo prices.
In the following months, traffic partially returned, transition routes were agreed and actions were taken with support U.S. Navy warships, however, the conditions of shipping continued to diverge far from those before the war.
According to the IMO, at least 70 attacks on international shipping have been confirmed since the start of the conflict, in which 19 seafarers have died.
Ships have been attempted out of the Gulf.
At some point, the problem was no longer the mere restriction of traffic by the Strait. We had to find a way to get the ships that remained in the Persian Gulf after the war began.
The IMO has prepared an evacuation plan for this purpose. Due to mine hazard two alternative routes could not be used.
They managed to move 136 ships out of about 2900 sailors. Later, the operation was halted when it was considered that further passages could no longer be conducted at an acceptable level of risk.
Nevertheless, hundreds of ships remained in the Persian Gulf. According to the balance sheet presented by the IMO at the end of August, their shipowners still do not have the conditions for safe passage through this route.
After six months, the Ormuz Strait remains at the centre of the conflict
The initial calculations of Washington and Jerusalem have not yet come to a conclusion. Reuters, summarizing six months of war, points out that the campaign launched by the United States and Israel to weaken Iranian nuclear programme and Tehran's position in the region has become a long-standing struggle, where energy exports and the Ormuz Strait itself are increasingly important.
Iran retained the ability to exert pressure on shipping, while the United States failed to restore the pre-war movement. Still in recent days, about 10 ships passed through the Strait with loads per day, but by the end of August the number fell to just a few.
The situation was further aggravated by the August 30 events when US forces hit two Iranian positions on the island of Larak. According to the American side, they were to be associated with preparations for the use of sea mines. Iran responded by rocket attacks to US targets in the region. This was the first direct exchange of fire between the two parties in over a month.
The account does not end in the Persian Gulf
From a European perspective, the conflict around the Strait of Ormuz may seem distant, but its effects have long not stopped in the Middle East. Distortion of supply of fuels, fertilizers and other raw materials translates into energy, freight and insurance prices, and thus also costs for consumers thousands of kilometres away Persian Gulf.
How little it takes for the situation to escalate again reminds the events of the last hours.
The UKMTO reported that about 12 nautical miles north of the Ottoman Chasabu unidentified missile hit a tanker passing through the Ormuz Strait into port. There have been no casualties or pollution of the sea, but the British agency has again called for ships passing through these waters to be particularly careful.
Six months ago, the Ormuz Strait was one of the most important routes of world energy trade. Today the movement there is only a shadow of this pre-war, and the effects of this paralysis go far beyond Persian Gulf. The bill for this conflict also reaches where no rocket has fallen.
