Chinese tanker reportedly passes US’ Hormuz blockade

[0:00] the united states started its naval blockade uh yesterday at 10 a.m eastern we're around 17 hours [0:07] in and basically a lot of the traffic the little trickle we've seen since the start of the war has [0:12] come to a screeching halt apart from one incident and this is really interesting because this is a [0:18] chinese-owned vessel it's now said to have tested the u.s naval blockade because it has passed through [0:24] the strait of hummus let's take you through this this is a rich starry uh this is a a tanker uh said [0:30] to be carrying methanol it started moving from uh shajah here in the uae remember a lot of these [0:37] vessels turn off the aia transponders so you don't really know the origin of which port that they [0:43] moved from starting to move towards kesham and laraq islands then you know starts aborting mission [0:50] moves back and then starts to take that route once again passing through the strait in the early [0:55] hours of this morning now this is a tanker that has been sanctioned since march 2023 by the u.s treasury [1:03] department because it has links to iran now from what we understand from experts this tanker was [1:10] able to move through completely unfazed by the u.s naval blockade so we don't know what exactly [1:18] transpired and how the united states is enforcing this blockade but this is really interesting to [1:24] see this uh this tanker that has uh you know links to iran that has been sanctioned by the united states [1:32] being able to to move through uh the strait of hummus at this time a lot of the shippers are very [1:37] reticent to even make the voyage number one they worried about having to coordinate directly with the [1:43] iranians and then number two what will they face when they hit the u.s naval blockade [1:48] a lot of the shippers believe that this is a double dilemma in terms of negotiating with both sides [1:54] from what we know right now that the united states is is doing this naval blockade to perhaps [2:01] start negotiations to force iran to the negotiating table you'll remember that a lot of the revenues that [2:07] iran is getting right now at the start of this war had to do with the toll that they were charging [2:11] the shippers rosemary and then importantly the iranian oil that was being sold and if you look [2:17] at some of the tanker traffic since the start of the war it has been dominated by iran linked vessels [2:23] and also vessels that are friendly to iran so the united states and president trump has been very clear [2:31] about this that any vessels any shippers that have paid that toll fee could face indictment and you have [2:37] a initial interesting bar chart here showing just how much the uh traffic plummeted since the start of [2:44] the war and you've seen a trickle throughout uh the over 40 days that we've been facing this conflict [2:50] in total 453 vessels have transited the strait uh since february 28th and importantly just to give [2:58] you a bit of a perspective normally 130 vessels pass through the strait on a daily basis richard mead is [3:05] the editor-in-chief of lloyd's list intelligence and he's with us now for live from london uh richard [3:10] good to see you uh you know you and i have been talking consistently since the start of the war [3:15] and there's been you know really interesting development specifically over the past few hours [3:20] after the u.s naval blockade came into effect we saw one chinese-linked tanker that was sanctioned by [3:28] the united states since 2023 transiting through the strait after initially had you know backed out and [3:34] then moved through once again what do we know about the rich starry and whether it was challenged [3:41] by the u.s navy well at the moment we know very little it's still moving which suggests that it [3:50] hasn't been challenged by the u.s um to be clear we're not entirely sure that this was laden with [3:58] iranian crude it's been used as floating storage for a while it entered back into the gulf [4:04] uh about 10 12 days ago from memory um and then it was heading out of the gulf this weekend and did [4:14] a bit of a u-turn at the point that donald trump announced the blockade it then made a break for [4:18] it last night and has uh exited now this is as you say a sanctioned falsely flagged ship um it is uh [4:26] nominally fraudulently flagged to malawi but we know it's uh a fraud um this probably would be a target but [4:34] it seems to have gone out we've also got a number of other shadow fleet tankers um one of which is [4:38] sanctioned heading in so it's going to be interesting to see how the u.s responds to this but right now [4:44] the vast majority of shipping is not moving on either side yeah so give me a sense of what [4:51] shippers are telling you um you know there's a lot of confusion about who to negotiate with [4:56] on the iranian side i mean it's been very clear coordinate directly with iranian forces now you've got the [5:01] u.s naval blockade is there any appetite to move through the straits even if vessels are not at any [5:08] iranian ports or iranian territorial waters right now no and i keep telling you uncertainty is uh [5:17] raining across the shipping industry yeah that goes in peaks and troughs if you'd asked me just before [5:22] the weekend i would have told you that there were at least half a dozen ship owners that were preparing [5:26] their ships to move out and we did see probably the busiest period of activity in terms of transits [5:30] through the strait uh over the weekend around 30 ships transited the shutters then came down and [5:37] as far as i can tell from most mainstream ship owners with their tankers still inside the gulf [5:42] absolutely no appetite to move right now until they get some clarity for those that were looking to get [5:47] in they are again waiting to see what happens over the next few hours you've got a double blockade [5:54] essentially you've got uh the u.s essentially blockading uh iranian linked uh tankers and then [6:00] you've got um you know the existing restrictions and and threats and and if you do engage with the [6:07] iranians are the us going to get you and vice versa the shipping industry is stuck in the middle right now [6:13] yeah i mean i i also you know was looking at marine traffic data and in total since the war began [6:20] there are around 450 vessels that have been able to transit through the strait of harmos keeping in [6:26] mind that it's usually 130 vessels per day um the the big question now becomes how many of these vessels [6:34] paid a toll to iran given that president trump has said any vessel and any shipper that has paid [6:39] will be indicted what data do we have on who actually paid iran directly very little direct [6:48] evidence and uh that's deliberately so i think everybody was very nervous about the tolls um [6:54] essentially the the money that was being paid was going directly to the irgc which is designated as a [7:00] terrorist organization by certainly the us and the eu um no western ship owner is going to want a paper [7:06] record of that and we know that settlement was being done in yuan or crypto um so i think probably [7:12] there's a few nervous ship owners that we know to have paid um but i would stress that the vast [7:17] majority probably haven't paid i think you know you're looking at the three-tier system there's [7:22] the iranian ships themselves um obviously they're not charging their own ships to go through um [7:27] there's the ones that got through with diplomatic agreements so the ira the indian government has been [7:32] absolutely clear that they definitely did not pay for any of their tankers to get out and there are [7:38] similar agreements with lots of other countries there are a small amount that we know to have [7:44] settled at least a fee now in some cases that was a large fee around two million dollars for a couple [7:50] of tankers that we know about in some cases this was being passed off as an administration cost [7:55] more in the chain of around 150 to 200 thousand dollars so i think probably there's going to be a [8:02] few nervous um questions as to how some of these ships got out but that's for that's for tomorrow [8:08] uh right now it's a question of what happens immediately and how we get the vessels moving [8:15] yeah i mean what you know president trump wants to see the strait opening up do you think that [8:19] putting in a u.s blockade is going to have that effect it's a little bit early to tell i think i [8:29] think as i say right now nothing is moving so i think to that extent it is having an impact but [8:36] we know that there's a couple of ships heading in westbound we don't know whether they're going [8:40] to try to get into iranian ports we've just seen that there's one heading eastbound using [8:46] what we call a zombie number these are essentially tankers using identification of ships that have [8:50] been scrapped years ago trying to falsely uh you know give themselves an identity it will be [8:56] interesting to see whether the u.s navy intercepts any of these i think we're really now just waiting [9:00] to see what the actual action is and the enforcement strategy from the u.s side all right richard mead [9:08] really great to have you with us always a pleasure um to speak to you give us so much clarity on what's [9:13] happening in the seas much appreciated