Iran lists 45 ships for Hormuz ‘violations’, including two Indian-owned vessels

Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority posted a list of 45 “non-compliant” vessels on Sunday and said they would face restrictions on future transits of the Strait of Hormuz, including fines, seizure or confiscation. The Indian Express, working through ownership and management records, identified two ships owned and run by India-based entities: LNG tanker Disha and bulk carrier Maha Roos. India Today’s vessel-by-vessel review found identifiable India links on 14 of the 45 names, including nine ships that have used Dahej, Hazira, Kandla or Vadinar.

Liberia flags 20 of the ships, the Marshall Islands seven. Energy carriers dominate: 14 crude tankers, 10 LNG tankers, five chemical or product tankers, four product tankers, one LPG tanker and one bitumen tanker. Owners on the list include units of Abu Dhabi’s ADNOC Logistics and Shipping, Navig8 Tankers, Saudi Arabia’s Bahri, Klaveness, Stolt Tankers and South Korea’s Sinokor. A Pakistan-flagged crude tanker, Mardan, is also named. Most of the rest of the commercial trail runs through the United Arab Emirates.

Tehran has said for months that ships must use routes it approves and must pay for security and other services. The authority did not spell out, ship by ship, which rule each vessel broke. An AFP analysis found that about one third of the 45 had already been attacked in or around the strait since the war that began in February, and that the International Maritime Organisation had confirmed damage on at least 14 of them.

The list lands in the same week as two other Hormuz stories. UK Maritime Trade Operations reported that the Liberia-flagged Aframax Metro Venetian was hit by an unknown projectile about nine nautical miles northeast of Ash Shishah, Oman, on 24 August, while carrying some 704,000 barrels of jet fuel. The engine room was damaged. The crew was unhurt. The ship later moved to Fujairah under its own power. No one claimed the strike. Separately, Iran and Oman have been talking about a temporary commercial corridor through Iranian waters, a track already covered in earlier reporting this week.

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said last week that a seven-day average of more than eight million barrels a day was leaving the strait and credited the US Navy. That figure is below the pre-war norm of roughly 20 per cent of global oil and a large share of LNG, but it is high enough to show that traffic never fully stopped. What Iran’s list does is attach a legal threat to named hulls. A fine is one thing. A seizure in a choke point is another.

For India the exposure is specific. Disha and Maha Roos are the two ships that sit on an Indian balance sheet. The other dozen with port or cargo ties matter for charterers who move crude and gas into Gujarat. New Delhi is already managing a separate US action this week that named four Indian firms and three nationals over alleged Iranian oil trade. The two pressures point in opposite directions: Washington punishes contact with Iranian barrels, Tehran punishes ships that ignore Iranian transit rules.

Shipowners now have to price three risks on the same passage: a projectile, a boarding, and a blacklist that follows the hull into the next charter. Insurers will ask which of those three the owner is trying to buy cover against. Some will refuse all three. That, more than the wording of the Sunday post, is how a list of 45 names changes the cost of moving oil through a strait that still has no agreed rulebook.