(Bloomberg) — Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz ground to a halt on Thursday after Iran fired on commercial ships and said it had seized at least two vessels — a first in nearly eight weeks of war.
Only one ship, bulk carrier LB Energy, was seen moving through the waterway early Thursday, with none seen entering. Products tanker Ocean Jewel is currently idling at the entrance to the corridor, having aborted a transit not long after Iranian forces began firing at three ships.
Two of those attacked vessels, the MSC Francesca and the Epaminondas, were subsequently boarded by Iranian forces, marking a new stage in Tehran’s efforts to exert control over traffic through Hormuz.
At least one vessel made it through in the hours after the shootings. Ascanio, a Greek-owned, Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier that had delivered food to Iran crossed the strait late Wednesday, and is now heading south in the Gulf of Oman.
Shipowners with vessels in the Gulf have been on edge in recent days, with Wednesday’s altercation marking the second round of attacks in less than a week. Over the weekend, Iranian forces abruptly ended a brief opening of the strait by shooting at passing vessels — a move Tehran later said was a response to the US decision to maintain its own naval blockade.
US forces say they have turned around 31 ships since its warships began barricading Iran’s coastline on April 13, most of them oil tankers.
While ship-tracking platforms indicate dozens of ships have crossed the blockade boundary, some of those have since been intercepted by US forces, the US said in a separate post. Of those, two Iranian supertankers are now anchored in Chabahar, an Iranian port in the Gulf of Oman, while another is currently being escorted by a US warship.
LB Energy’s owner is Woody Chartering Ltd., according to maritime database Equasis, which has the same Greece-based address as its manager, Grehel Shipmanagement Co. Ocean Jewel’s owner and manager is Shanghai-based Ocean Jewel Shipping Co. Ltd. Ascanio Maritime Ltd., the owner of Ascanio, has the same address in Athens as its manager Minoa Marine Ltd.
The companies didn’t immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.
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