By Florence Tan, Mariko Katsumura and Jonathan Saul
SINGAPORE/LONDON, April 14 (Reuters) – The first full day of a U.S. embargo on ships calling at Iranian ports made little difference to Strait of Hormuz traffic on Tuesday, with at least eight ships, including three Iran-linked tankers, passing through the waterway, shipping data showed.
US President Donald Trump announced the embargo after the failure of peace talks between the US and Iran in Islamabad on Sunday.
The embargo has created more uncertainty for shippers, oil companies and war risk insurers. The traffic remains only a fraction of the 130-plus daily crossings before the U.S.-Israel war on Iran began on Feb. 28, industry sources said Tuesday.
“In the first 24 hours, no ships passed the US blockade,” US Central Command said on X, adding that six ships complied with US military instructions to re-enter Iranian ports.
Three Iran-related ships transiting the strait could not call at Iranian ports and were not affected by the blockade.
The Panama-flagged Peace Gulf, a medium-haul tanker, is en route to the port of Hamriyah in the United Arab Emirates, LSEG data showed.
The ship typically moves Iranian naphtha, a petrochemical feedstock, to other non-Iranian Middle Eastern ports for export to Asia, Kepler data showed.
Earlier, two US-sanctioned tankers had passed through the narrow waterway.
Handy tanker Murlikishan is heading to Iraq to load fuel oil on April 16, Kepler data showed. The ship, formerly known as the MKA, carried Russian and Iranian oil.
Another approved tanker, the Rich Sterry, will be the first to make it through the strait and exit the Gulf since the blockade began, data from LSEG and Kpler showed.
The tanker and its owner, Shanghai Juanrun Shipping Company, were placed under US sanctions because of their dealings with Iran. The company could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Rich Starry is a medium-range tanker that holds about 250,000 barrels of methanol, according to the data. It loaded the cargo at its last port of call, Hamriyah in the UAE, the data showed.
Data shows that Chinese-owned tankers have Chinese crews.
China’s foreign ministry warned on Tuesday that the US blockade of Iranian ports was “dangerous and irresponsible” and would escalate tensions. The ministry did not mention whether Chinese ships were transiting the strait.
More sails through the strait
Five other ships had sailed through the strait since the blockade began at 1400 GMT on Monday. Among them were two other chemical and gas tankers, two dry bulk vessels and an Ocean Energy cargo ship docked at Iran’s Bandar Abbas port.
Humanitarian shipments would be exempted from the embargo, according to a US military note sent to the navy and seen by Reuters.
“The United States does not need to block all types of ships or enter the Strait of Hormuz; it can impose a blockade intermittently,” said Fabrizio Cotichia, a professor of political science at the University of Genoa in Italy.
“The ships will not be attacked, but diverted,” Cotichia said, “the United States. The warship will be located outside the strait in the Gulf of Oman.
While the cost of war-risk insurance has not increased since the embargo began, it remains in the hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional weekly costs, with cover typically reviewed by underwriters every 48 hours, industry sources said.
“A return to ‘normalcy’ in the Middle East now looks further away than it did a week ago, especially since the US Navy has launched a blockade,” shipbroker BRS said in a report.
“It is anticipated that there will be little or no commercial traffic in the strait for the foreseeable future.”
(Reporting by Florence Tan in Singapore, Mariko Katsumura in Tokyo, Jonathan Saul in London, Arathi Somasekhar in Houston and Francesca Landini in Milan; Editing by Himani Sarkar, Jamie Freed, Sharon Singleton and David Goodman)
