Tanker attacks are escalating in the Strait of Hormuz, even as oil exports rise

Gulf oil exporters topped prewar levels ​for about half of September, new shipping data showed on Monday, though attacks on tankers and logistical constraints cloud the outlook for ‌sustained higher flows.

Ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz face a “heightened and increasingly unpredictable kinetic threat” given the recent sharp increase in traffic, Marisks, a shipping intelligence service, said on Saturday.

The seven-day moving average for crude exports from the region was 18.3 million barrels per day on September 30, provisional data from Kpler showed, with volumes topping pre-war levels on 14 days in September.

That included Gulf oil ​sent Hormuz, via the Red Sea, and from terminals and ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman.

Shipments had earlier matched or exceeded prewar levels on a handful of ​days in June and July, Kpler data showed, after Washington and Tehran reached a memorandum of understanding that has since ⁠lapsed.

Crude exports from the region averaged about 18 million bpd in the 12 months before the start of the US-Israeli war with Iran, according to Kpler.

The recent export surge has ​been driven by Saudi Arabia loading from both the Red Sea and the Gulf, three weeks after a September 10 attack…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/business