Brent crude was trading at $117.15 a barrel on Friday morning, up $2.27 on the day, after a tanker transiting the Strait of Hormuz was set on fire by two explosive devices attached to its hull — the first successful use of limpet mines in the waterway since the United States' war with Iran began in February, maritime security sources told Reuters. The crew is safe, the fire is out and the ship has continued on its way, UKMTO said.
The UK Maritime Trade Operations office (UKMTO), the Royal Navy-run reporting point for shipping in the region, said the attack happened late on Thursday, 25 nautical miles northeast of Khasab, Oman, off the Musandam Peninsula, as the tanker was heading outbound through the strait. A small boat came up on the tanker's port side and attached two explosive devices to the hull above the waterline. In UKMTO's words: "The subsequent blasts resulted in a fire in the engine room which temporarily disabled the vessel. The fire is now reported as extinguished and the vessel is continuing to its next port of call." UKMTO said it had also received "a verified report confirming the crew is safe, and there is no environmental impact."
UKMTO did not name the ship. Three maritime security sources told Reuters the devices were limpet mines and identified the vessel as the Panama-flagged crude tanker Louise 1 — the same ship Ukraine's SBU security service says its naval drones struck in the Black Sea in July over its role carrying Russian oil in Moscow's so-called shadow fleet. The tanker's listed operator, Panama-based Aquarius Maritime Ventures, could not be reached for comment, and what cargo, if any, she was carrying on this transit has not been reported. A similar limpet-mine attempt in September failed to detonate, two of the sources said. "The apparent ability of a small craft to approach a transiting tanker, deploy explosive devices and withdraw presents a significant security concern," the maritime risk firm Marisks said.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, and Reuters reported that it was not immediately clear who was behind it. It was not the only attack on shipping that day: UKMTO had reported a separate projectile strike on another outbound tanker hours earlier on Thursday. Attacks on merchant ships in and around the strait have been repeated throughout the war, along the sea lane that carried about a fifth of the world's oil before the fighting began.
The attack kept oil on course for a fourth straight monthly gain: Brent is on course to finish October up about 13 percent and the US benchmark, West Texas Intermediate, about 15 percent, with WTI at $103.79 a barrel on Friday morning. The $117.15 figure was the December Brent contract, which expires on Friday; it later pushed on to $117.62, while the January contract traded near $113. "The oil market is getting increasingly spooked as we approach the midterms," said Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank, who noted that some investors expect US attacks on Iran to resume after the elections. Qatari mediators returned to Tehran on Friday in a renewed push for a deal, an official briefed on the talks told Reuters — against what UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo called a "higher likelihood of an escalation and supply disruption."
For American households, this is already a pump price, not just a market number. AAA put the national average for a gallon of regular gasoline at $4.22 on Thursday, about $1.19 more than a year ago, and said crude oil above $100 a barrel is limiting any further fall — four days before the November 3 midterm elections. President Trump, who has said the United States would not strike Iran before the elections, told a Kansas City radio station on Friday that he believed the war would end soon: "It's going to get wrapped up soon. We need a guarantee there'll never be a nuclear weapon." Until it is wrapped up, every boat that reaches a tanker in the strait reaches American drivers too — in the price of getting to work, and of everything that arrives by truck.
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