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Tom Hussain

Sometime in early 1988, while the nine-year war between Iran and Iraq was still raging, veteran British publisher Abdullah Jonathan Wallace paid a visit to his old friend, Bahrain’s information minister Tariq Almoayed.
As they drove out of Manama to Tariq’s home on another island in Bahrain’s archipelago, Wallace looked seaward and was shocked to see a task force of US Navy ships moored in the Persian Gulf.
“Tariq! Look! Ships!” Wallace excitedly said to the Bahraini minister.
Almoayed, who was driving, kept his eyes firmly fixed on the road.
“Ships? I see no ships,” he replied, giving Wallace an unforgettable anecdote to later relate to his Middle East team at the United Press International news agency, which included this reporter.
That unprecedented deployment of US Navy ships in the territorial waters of a Gulf monarchy was in preparation for Operation Praying Mantis against Iranian naval assets.

The memory of the US’ retaliatory action against Iran for its mining of the USS Samuel B. Roberts during the so-called tanker war that Iran and Iraq waged against commercial shipping in the 1980s, weighed heavily on the maritime industry during the 12-day conflict between Iran and Israel that ended in a fragile ceasefire on Tuesday.
To shipping companies, it did not matter that Iran had taken no steps to enforce the threat of disrupting maritime traffic in the Persian Gulf, much less an attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz, which links it to the Indian Ocean via the Arabian Sea.
“While Iran’s threat to close the strait is more likely strategic posturing than sustained action, from a maritime shipping vantage, insurance premiums, and by extension freight rates, have already begun climbing,” Greek shipping firm Intermodal said in a report issued to its clients on June 17.
London-based maritime intelligence provider Kpler observed that seven tankers headed into the Gulf had changed course on June 20. Six were placed in holding patterns off Oman’s Indian Ocean coast, while the seventh, the liquefied natural gas carrier Hlaitan, made a U-turn from its signalled route to Qatar’s Ras Laffan loading terminal to leave the region altogether, Kpler said.


Major tanker operator Frontline suspended contracts for its vessels about to pass through the strait and ordered the ones already in the Gulf to exit under naval protection, Intermodal reported on June 20.
A couple of days later, Greece’s shipping ministry advised the country’s many independent tanker owners to “reassess passage” of the Strait of Hormuz until the situation in the Gulf had calmed down.
Following suit, major container shipping lines which carry cargo between Asia and Europe – including Denmark’s Maersk, CMA CGM of France, Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd and Tokyo-based Mitsui OSK – advised their clients that their vessels could be diverted if the situation in the Gulf deteriorated. The waterway is the world’s second largest for seaborne trade, after the trans-Pacific route connecting East Asia to North America.
Unsurprisingly, nerves also jangled at the Dubai headquarters of DP World, a leading global operator of port terminals and free zones including the Middle Eastern superhub of Jebel Ali. The port handled 15.5 million 20-foot equivalent (TEU) container units last year, a 6.9 per cent year-on-year increase, on the back of “robust demand” from Asia and the Indian subcontinent.
“In the unlikely event of a closure of the Strait of Hormuz, we are working closely with government authorities to ensure business continuity and are prepared with re-routing and alternative logistics strategies,” a DP World spokesman told This Week in Asia on Monday. “Our integrated supply chain infrastructure across the region gives us the flexibility to minimise disruption for our customers and protect cargo movements.”

Despite taking no offensive action beyond GPS spoofing – the act of faking signals to trick navigation devices – Iran had successfully taken the wind out of the sails of ships in the Gulf, analysts said.
The Persian Gulf “is a region where Iran could cause a major disruption in commodities trades with little effort,” Contango Research shipping analyst Ed Finley-Richardson told This Week in Asia.
“It would be a rational, low risk-high reward strategy” because shipowners traversing the region were already “extremely nervous”. Had there been “any sign of material danger”, many owners would have chosen to avoid the Gulf entirely, Finley-Richardson said.
Peter Sand, chief analyst of ocean freight benchmarking firm Xeneta, said any closure of the Strait of Hormuz would mean a re-routing of container line services, with increased reliance on India’s west coast ports to connect other parts of Asia with the Indian subcontinent.
“The inevitable disruption and port congestion, as well as the potential for higher oil prices, would cause a spike in ocean freight container shipping rates,” Sand said in a statement issued on June 13, the day Israel first launched its military operation against Iran. He warned that carriers were likely to push for a security surcharge on these trades.

Finley-Richardson said the escalation between the two countries came at “an intriguing time”. On June 18, the 15,000 TEU container ship CMA CGM Osiris became the first such vessel to traverse the Suez Canal since March last year because of the threat that has been posed to Red Sea shipping by Yemen’s Houthi militants.
The Iran-allied group, which agreed to halt its attacks on commercial shipping after the US bombed its positions between March and May, had not as of Friday followed through on its threat to resume its strikes if the US bombed Iran.
Had the Houthis done so, the Red Sea would have remained disrupted for much longer, and the opening of a second front near the Strait of Hormuz would have exacerbated the shortage of container ships in the region, Finley-Richardson said.


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Israel-Iran conflict

Seaborne scare: how Israel-Iran war put global shipping on alert

A tanker is seen ablaze in 1987 after being attacked by an Iranian warship as it approached the Strait of Hormuz. Photo: AFP

Oil tankers pass through the Strait of Hormuz in 2018. Photo: Reuters

The American aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and other US warships transit the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf in 2023. Photo: US Navy / AP

The Strait of Hormuz separating Iran (top) from the United Arab Emirates and Oman (bottom) as seen from the International Space Station. Photo: Nasa / AFP

From Iraq to Iran: the US quest for Israeli military dominance – and its fallout

Illustration: Huy Truong

A US F-18 fighter jet flies over gas flares at an oil well in northern Kuwait in 1995. Photo: AFP

(From left) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and US President Donald Trump. Photos: AFP

A satellite picture shows Iran’s Fordow uranium enrichment facility on June 22 after US air strikes were conducted on the site. Photo: Maxar Technologies / AFP

Syrian protesters burn a poster of Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian dictator was ousted in December last year. Photo: AP

Demonstrators rally outside the White House in Washington on Sunday to protest against the US military strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran. Photo: AP 

Trump attends the Saudi-US Investment Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on May 13. Photo: Reuters

Hungry Palestinians try to get food at a charity kitchen in Gaza last month. Photo: Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images/TNS

Asian shippers fear spiralling costs as Iran threatens Strait of Hormuz closure

Up to 20 million barrels of oil pass each day through the Strait of Hormuz, one-fifth of the global supply. Photo: Reuters

The Sharan oil depot in Tehran on fire following Israeli strikes on Iran on June 15. Photo: Handout via Reuters

A view of a ship on fire after a reported collision between two oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday last week. Photo: European Union/Copernicus Sentinel-2/Handout via Reuters

A Houthi supporter steps on US and Israel flags during a protest in Sana’a, Yemen, in 2024. Photo: EPA-EFE

Israel-Iran conflict raises Asia’s energy security fears over Strait of Hormuz risks

Smoke and flames rise from the Sharan oil depot in Tehran following Israeli air strikes on June 15. Israeli attacks on Iranian energy infrastructure have raised fears of wider disruption to global oil markets. Photo: Reuters

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference in Jerusalem on May 21. Photo: AP

How Israel-Iran conflict hardens North Korea’s nuclear resolve

North Korea test-fires a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in October last year. Photo: KCNA via KNS/AFP

A North Korean nuclear plant pictured in 2008. Photo: Kyodo/Reuters

A North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile pictured ahead of its test-launch in 2022. Photo: KCNA via KNS/AFP 

Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un pose for a photo during the signing ceremony in June last year. Photo: Sputnik via AP

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The ghost of the 1980s ‘tanker war’ returned as Iran’s threats to close the Strait of Hormuz saw ships change course and freight rates soar


The ghost of the 1980s ‘tanker war’ returned as Iran’s threats to close the Strait of Hormuz saw ships change course and freight rates soar.
