STRAIT OF HORMUZ

 

For: Preliminary & Mains
Topic covers: Hormuz Strait – its importance, Tanker war/ Iran-Iraq war & its background

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News Flash

Saudi Arabia said that two Saudi oil tankers were among vessels targeted in a “sabotage attack” off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, condemning it as an attempt to undermine the security of global crude supplies.

The UAE said that four commercial vessels were sabotaged near Fujairah emirate, one of the world’s largest bunkering hubs lying just outside the Strait of Hormuz.

Sabotage attack: Deliberately destroy, damage, or obstruct (something), especially for political or military advantage.

 

What is Strait of Hormuz?

• Strait of Hormuz is a vital shipping route linking Middle East oil producers to markets in Asia, Europe, North America and beyond.
• The waterway separates Iran and Oman, linking the Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.
• The Strait is 21 miles (33 km) wide at its narrowest point, but the shipping lane is just two miles (three km) wide in either direction.

 

Why does Strait of Hormuz matter?

• The US Energy Information Administration estimated that 18.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of seaborne oil passed through the waterway in 2016. That was about 30 per cent of crude and other oil liquids traded by sea in 2016.
• According to oil analytics firm Vortexa, about 17.2 million bpd of crude and condensates were estimated to have been shipped through the Strait in 2017 and about 17.4 million bpd in the first half of 2018. With global oil consumption standing at about 100 million bpd, that means almost a fifth passes through the Strait.
• Most crude exported from Saudi Arabia, Iran, the UAE, Kuwait and Iraq — all members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries — is shipped through the waterway.
• It is also the route used for nearly all the liquefied natural gas (LNG) produced by the world’s biggest LNG exporter, Qatar.

 

Iran-Iraq war

• During the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, the two sides sought to disrupt each other’s oil exports in what was known as the Tanker War.
• The US Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, is tasked with protecting the commercial ships in the area.
• While the presence of the US Fifth Fleet should ensure that the critical waterway remains open, provocative Iranian military maneuvers are likely in the immediate offing as is a nuclear restart.
• Iran agreed to rein in its nuclear programme in return for an easing of sanctions under a 2015 deal with the United States and five other global powers.
• Washington pulled out of the pact in 2018. Western powers fear Iran wants to make nuclear weapons. Tehran denies this.

 

Are there alternative routes for Gulf oil?

The UAE and Saudi Arabia have sought to find other routes to bypass the Strait, including building more oil pipelines.

 

Have there been incidents in the strait before?

• In July 1988, the US warship Vincennes shot down an Iranian airliner, killing all 290 aboard. As what Washington said that it was an accident after crew mistook the plane for a fighter. Tehran said it was a deliberate attack. The United States said the Vincennes was in the area to protect neutral vessels against Iranian navy attacks.
• In early 2008, the United States said Iranian boats threatened its warships after they approached three US naval ships in the Strait. In June 2008, the then Revolutionary Guards commander-in-chief, Mohammad Ali Jafari, said Iran would impose controls on shipping in the Strait if it was attacked.
• In July 2010, Japanese oil tanker M Star was attacked in the Strait. A militant group called Abdullah Azzam Brigades, which is linked to al Qaeda, claimed responsibility.
• In January 2012, Iran threatened to block the Strait in retaliation for US and European sanctions that targeted its oil revenues in an attempt to stop Tehran’s nuclear programme.
• In May 2015, Iranian ships fired shots at a Singapore-flagged tanker which it said damaged an Iranian oil platform, causing the vessel to flee. It also seized a container ship in the Strait.
• In July 2018, President Hassan Rouhani hinted Iran could disrupt oil flows through the Strait in response to US calls to reduce Iran’s oil exports to zero. A Revolutionary Guards commander also said Iran would block all exports through the Strait if Iranian exports were stopped.

 

Background: The Tanker War or Iran-Iraq war

• The Iran-Iraq war was began in September 1980.
• The “tanker war” in the waters of the Gulf. The war has attracted international interest because it has involved the shipping of many countries. It is seen as having the potential both to affect world oil exports and prices, and to draw other countries into the conflict.
• The tanker war is a campaign of economic attrition and political intimidation. Iraq attacks ships serving Iranian ports—largely to reduce Iran’s oil exports, which go entirely by sea and which help finance Iran’s war effort.
• Because Iran destroyed Iraq’s oil terminal early in the war, no tankers steam to or from Iraq, and Iraq’s oil exports now travel by overland pipeline. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, however, support Iraq’s war effort.
• Iran thus wages its own war on shipping serving the Arab side of the Gulf to reduce Iraq’s imports of war material,  and to intimidate the Gulf states supporting Iraq.
• Iran trapped or destroyed many Iraqi ships in port in the early stages of the war. But Iraq started the tanker war in the Gulf proper in 1981 by initiating attacks on ships steaming to or from Iranian ports at the extreme northern end of the Gulf. Iraq continued these attacks into 1984 without a parallel Iranian response at sea.
• Iraq increased the rate of its attacks and expanded their geographic scope by attacking ships serving more southerly Iranian points, particularly the oil-loading complex at Kharg Island. Two months later, Iran initiated its own attacks, and the tanker war became a two-way affair.

 

Strait of Hormuz

• The Strait of Hormuz is a strait between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
• It provides the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean and is one of the world’s most strategically important choke points.
• On the north coast lies Iran, and on the south coast the United Arab Emirates and Musandam, an exclave of Oman.
• At its narrowest, the strait has a width of 21 nautical miles (39 km).
• A third of the world’s liquefied natural gas and almost 20% of total global oil production passes through the strait, making it a highly important strategic location for international trade.

 

 

Source: Indian Express

 

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