I was going to publish a tanker deep dive on Friday but then I heard that the US had repositioned a squadron of F-16CJ/DJ Fighting Falcon aircraft to Israel. These are the “wild weasels” which take out enemy air defences, allowing air bombardment to be enacted unopposed. The arrival of the jets in theatre indicated an imminent attack on Iran. I thought it might happen today, but the Israelis and Americans got the jump on Iran by attacking on Israel’s sabbath.
At least 200 oil tankers are trapped north of the Strait of Hormuz, according to tanker tracking companies and ship brokers. Many seem to have switched off their AIS transponders, an understandable response in a theatre where information transparency can increase vulnerability. This is a far more information rich environment than during the tanker wars of the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, but the best advice when the bombs start to drop is to keep your head down and stay out of the way.
Given the average size of a tanker is around 70,000 Dwt, there must be around 14 Mn Dwt of tanker capacity trapped North of Hormuz today – that’s just under 2% of the fleet in service. In itself, that is not enough to drive a spike in the freight markets but the issue beyond today is not trapped tonnage but how much of the remaining fleet refuses to trade into the region.
Read more here.
