Iran Says Tankers Hit Mines in the Strait of Hormuz; the U.S. Disputes It and Oman Rescues 25 Sailors
Iran's Revolutionary Guards say three tankers struck mines and caught fire in the world's most important oil strait on Friday. Washington says the main lanes are clear of mines. Oman says it pulled 25 sailors off a burning ship - and Brent crude closed the week at $117.
The Strait of Hormuz is the subject of two incompatible accounts this weekend. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Friday that three oil tankers - one of them a supertanker carrying more than two million barrels of crude - struck naval mines and caught fire while transiting routes Tehran considers unauthorized, Qazinform reported. Iran did not identify the ships, their operators, their flag states or their crews, and the claims have not been independently verified.
What is on the record from outside Iran is narrower, and serious on its own. Oman said its navy evacuated 25 crew members from the merchant ship RITI, a Panama-flagged vessel that was targeted and caught fire, according to Oman's Maritime Security Centre. The British maritime security agency UKMTO reported a ship struck by an unknown projectile about 40 nautical miles south of Iran's Lavan Island on Friday, with a fire onboard, and a separate incident in which a small boat attached two explosive devices to a tanker northeast of Khasab, Oman - an engine-room fire that was put out, with the crew safe.
The United States rejects the mine account. U.S. Central Command chief Admiral Brad Cooper said Friday that American forces had successfully cleared the strait's internationally recognized primary transit routes of Iranian sea mines, and CENTCOM maintains the main lanes are clear. Markets are pricing the uncertainty either way: Brent crude hit $117 a barrel in Asian trade on Friday, on track for a fourth consecutive monthly gain - a number felt first in Texas, the nation's largest oil-producing state, whatever the final account of Friday's fires turns out to be.
