The statements came in stages, not all at once. Iran's Revolutionary Guards Navy first spoke of one tanker holding 2 million barrels of crude that had struck a naval mine, then said a fourth vessel, carrying more than 2 million barrels, had also hit a mine, exploded and was alight. All of it was carried by Iranian state media on Friday, and gCaptain, citing Reuters, reports that Reuters could not confirm any of it independently.
The Guards said the ships had been moving along routes it called unauthorised. No casualty figure appears in either report, and neither gives a price move for crude.
Key numbers
- 4 tankers said by Iran's Revolutionary Guards Navy to have caught fire and exploded in the strait, according to Iranian state media on Friday
- More than 2 million barrels of crude aboard the fourth vessel, which the Guards said hit a mine; an earlier Guards statement put 2 million barrels on the first
- 40 nautical miles (74 km) south of Iran's Lavan Island, the position UKMTO gave for a vessel reported hit on its port side
- About one-fifth of the world's oil supply passes through the Strait of Hormuz
Two accounts, and no link established between them
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency, the Royal Navy-run body that collects shipping incident reports in the region, said a verified source described a crude tanker being struck by an unknown projectile as it finished an outbound passage of the strait. In an earlier notice, UKMTO placed a vessel hit on its port side roughly 40 nautical miles south of Lavan Island, in the Gulf off Iran's southern coast, with a fire on board. The crew were reported safe and no environmental damage was reported.
Whether those vessels are any of the four named by the Guards was not clear from the reports.
The same day brought a second set of competing claims. Iranian state media said forces had brought down and seized an MQM-170 US drone over Qeshm island, and that an unmanned US vessel had been destroyed in the eastern part of the strait. US Central Command rejected the second claim on X, saying every American unmanned surface vessel in the Middle East was accounted for, including sea drones patrolling the strait. Reuters could not verify the Iranian reports, and there was no immediate US comment on the drone.
Why a fire in this waterway reaches the oil market
Hormuz is the exit route for a large share of Gulf crude, and the reports describe pressure on it that has lasted since the US-Israeli strikes on Iran at the end of February. Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, said on 18 October that Tehran's offer to the United States to reopen the strait within seven days still stood, gCaptain reported.
In plain words: a chokepoint is a narrow stretch of sea that loaded tankers cannot easily avoid. When owners and insurers judge that stretch to be dangerous, sailings are delayed and war-risk cover costs more, and fewer barrels reach buyers on schedule. That chain, from a single burning hull to the volume of crude actually moving, is why shipping incidents here are read as supply news rather than maritime news.