Iran war: Vessels carrying Middle East oil, LNG exit Hormuz, head for Pakistan, China
The US-Israeli war against Iran, which began on February 28, has severely restricted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately one-fifth of the world’s oil and LNG supplies normally pass.
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The ships are among a handful of supertankers leaving the Gulf this month via a transit route that Iran has ordered the ships to use. Last week, three Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCC) departed for China and South Korea with 6 million barrels of crude oil.
LNG tanker Fuwairit is transiting the Strait of Hormuz on Monday and is expected to unload its cargo in Pakistan on Tuesday, according to LSEG and Kpler shipping data. The ship, sailing under the flag of the Bahamas, loaded LNG from Qatar’s Ras Laffan port around March 28.
Japan’s Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL), which owns Fuwairit, could not immediately be reached for comment after business hours.
Separately, the VLCC Eagle Verona, which exited the strait on Saturday, is expected to arrive at the eastern China port of Ningbo on June 12 to unload its cargo, shipping data from LSEG and Kpler showed. The Singapore-flagged ship, chartered by Unipec, the trading arm of Asia’s largest refiner Sinopec, loaded about 2 million barrels of Basra crude oil around February 26. data.
Sinopec and MISC, the Malaysian state shipper that owns the ship, could not immediately be reached for comment after business hours.
Before the war started, ship traffic in the strait averaged 125 to 140 passages per day. Approximately 20,000 sailors were stranded in the Gulf with hundreds of ships.
