{"id":726349,"date":"2026-08-03T17:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T17:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/726349\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T17:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T17:13:08","slug":"threat-to-oil-tankers-in-middle-east-worst-since-start-of-iran-war-analysts-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/726349\/","title":{"rendered":"Threat to oil tankers in Middle East worst since start of Iran war, analysts say"},"content":{"rendered":"

The threat to ships carrying oil in the Middle East is at its worst since the Iran war started, experts have said, after a spate of attacks on another key route in the region.<\/p>\n

The warning comes after a number of attacks on vessels in the Red Sea, an alternative waterway that some tankers had been using since Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

Iran has denied Donald Trump’s claim<\/a> that it was in talks with the US over reopening the strait, but said it was speaking to Oman about securing the shipping lane.<\/p>\n

“In terms of threat to the trade of crude, we’re at the worst period that we’ve been in since this since this crisis began,” said Matthew Wright, an analyst at ship-tracking firm Kpler.<\/p>\n

The number of ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz<\/a> was just eight on Sunday and 11 on Saturday, compared with more than 100 per day before the war began, according to Kpler.<\/p>\n

Before the conflict, about 20% of the world’s oil and gas passed through the strait.<\/p>\n

The temporary peace deal with the US struck in early June led to numbers rising again, but the resumption of strikes between the two countries roughly a month later have significantly reduced traffic.<\/p>\n

Many ships have been “going dark” when crossing the strait, meaning they turn off their transponder to avoid detection.<\/p>\n

For much of the war, some ships carrying oil from Saudi Arabia had instead passed through an alternative shipping lane in the Red Sea, between the kingdom and west Africa.<\/p>\n

But a recent spate of attacks by Yemen’s Houthi fighters<\/a> on Saudi tankers using the alternative waterway has further heightened the risks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The threat to ships carrying oil in the Middle East is at its worst since the Iran war…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":726350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-726349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/726350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}