Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has said it maintains full control of the Strait of Hormuz, where United States President Donald Trump has said he is prepared to deploy the navy to escort tankers,
Al Jazeera reports.
“Currently, the Strait of Hormuz is under the complete control of the Islamic Republic’s Navy,” IRGC Navy official Mohammad Akbarzadeh said on Wednesday in a statement carried by Iran’s Fars news agency.
About a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped through the all-important narrow passage of water.
However, a Reuters news agency report said in a rare voyage, an oil tanker sailed through the Strait of Hormuz en route to a United Arab Emirates port to load crude.
The tanker, Pola, switched off its AIS tracker late on Monday, when it approached the strait, and the vessel reappeared on Tuesday off Abu Dhabi, according to sources and ship-tracking data, Reuters added.
The US-Israeli war on Iran is disrupting the global supply chain, with shipping closed in the vital Strait of Hormuz and planes carrying air cargo grounded by the closure of airspace in the Middle East.
Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi, reporting from Tehran, said the IRGC stated it was “impossible for any ships to pass through” and that more than 10 oil tankers were targeted.
Clarksons Research, which tracks shipping data, estimates that about 3,200 ships, or about 4 percent of global ship tonnage, are idle in the Gulf, although that includes about 1,230 that likely operate only within the Gulf, The Associated Press news agency reported.
