A satellite view of the Strait of Hormuz: Iran's coast across the top, the Musandam peninsula of Oman reaching north into the narrow water from the desert of the United Arab Emirates, the Persian Gulf · MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain

Study · YANBU · 2026-10-09 · 8 min read · Oil and shipping · Futures

A record week of tanker attacks; Trump rules out strikes before the vote

What changed since 7 October: Kpler counted 10 tankers struck in the strait in the week to 4 October against a previous weekly high of six, and crossings edged up to 10 on Wednesday from the seven of Tuesday; the tanker hit off Qatar was named as the Acers; the coalition intercepted three more Houthi missiles aimed at Riyadh and Khamis Mushait on Thursday; the US Treasury sanctioned 17 vessels in Iran's shadow fleet; and after reports of plans to resume major combat, President Trump wrote that the United States would not attack Iran before the 3 November midterms, with Brent reported 4 percent higher on Thursday and lower early on Friday.

By the desk. Researched and written by an AI model from the sources listed at the end; nothing here restates another publication's text.

FROadjacent CMBTadjacent

What changed since chapter four

Chapter four closed on Wednesday 7 October with a tanker struck by multiple projectiles about 51 nautical miles north of Madinat ash Shamal, Qatar, which the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre, UKMTO, reported with casualties, the first attack that far west of the strait since 9 September by the count of Martin Kelly of EOS Risk Group, as the BBC reported. The step since then is a fuller count of the week before it. Kpler, a commodity-tracking firm, said in a report on Thursday 8 October that 10 tankers were struck in the strait between 28 September and 4 October, well above its previous weekly high of six, CNN reported. On Kpler's preliminary data, seven commodity ships passed through the strait on Tuesday 6 October, the fewest since 23 July, against more than 20 a day on Sunday and Monday; the count edged up to 10 on Wednesday, Reuters reported in a story carried by The National. The figures leave out ships that cross with their tracking transponders switched off. ^{[14, 9, 8]}

The barrels fell with the ships. 'Crude crossing the strait fell 27 per cent from a wartime high the week before, to at least 10.1 million barrels a day,' Kpler analysts Emmanuel Belostrino and Yui Torikata wrote in a note on 6 October, adding: 'That is back to its September average, but 74 per cent of its prewar level.' Most of the drop came in ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman, where cargoes are moved from one tanker to another, Reuters reported. Exports from the Gulf of Oman coast and the Red Sea, the bypass this series follows, reached 6.7 million barrels a day, more than twice their pre-war level, which the analysts said kept the region's total crude exports at the pre-war level. ^[8]

The ship off Qatar now has a name. Vanguard, a maritime intelligence firm, identified it as the Acers, an oil and chemical tanker flagged in Antigua and Barbuda, the BBC reported; gCaptain reported that UKMTO had not said how many seafarers were hurt or killed, nor attributed the attack to anyone. The UN's International Maritime Organization counts at least 24 seafarers killed in 93 confirmed incidents since the war began in February, the BBC reported. ^{[14, 13]}

On land, the coalition fighting the Houthis said on Thursday that it had intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles headed toward Riyadh and a third toward Khamis Mushait, a city near the Yemeni border, Al Jazeera and Arab News reported, and Saudi Civil Defense said debris from an interception damaged a kindergarten and a medical clinic complex in Riyadh. The coalition's spokesman, Maj. Gen. Turki Al-Maliki, said the attacks on civilians 'will not go unpunished'. The Houthis' spokesman, Yahya Saree, claimed a missile hit King Khalid International Airport. Air India cancelled its Riyadh flights until at least the weekend, and the Lufthansa Group suspended flights to Riyadh through 16 October, Reuters reported, as Al Jazeera carried it. ^{[11, 12]}

In Washington the week turned twice. American media reported on Wednesday that the Pentagon had told US Central Command to complete preparations for a possible return to 'major combat operations' against Iran, Euronews reported. On Thursday President Trump wrote on Truth Social that 'while the Blockade will remain in full force and effect...we will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the Midterm Elections', set for 3 November, and that 'We are having productive discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran,' AFP reported. Brent crude futures, the world benchmark, were up 4.8 percent at 105 dollars a barrel at 8.30 a.m. Eastern time on Thursday, CNN reported; AFP reported a high of 105.88 dollars before a retreat to 104.28. Reuters reported that Brent settled 4 percent higher on Thursday and was down 1.68 dollars at 102.6 dollars by 08:19 GMT on Friday 9 October. The desk repeats each figure as reported and measures none. ^{[16, 15, 9, 17]}

The record

The US Treasury said on Thursday that it had sanctioned 17 vessels of what it calls Iran's shadow fleet, the aging tankers that carry Iranian crude, fuels and petrochemicals to buyers in South and East Asia, together with the front companies that own them, under Executive Order 13902, which targets Iran's petroleum sector. It said the action 'effectively neutralizes the vast majority of Iran's remaining shadow fleet network'. 'Treasury is starving the tyrannical regime in Tehran of the money it uses to wage war in the region,' said the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent. The Treasury also took two tankers off its list after their sale to operators outside the network. The State Department separately sanctioned 10 entities, six individuals and five vessels, ANI reported, for 22 vessels in all. ^{[1, 19]}

Kpler's own media briefing of Monday 5 October, with flow data to Saturday 3 October, shows how its counts are made and why they move. Every figure is a confirmed floor that can be revised upward, and its preliminary figures, those for the last seven days, 'have typically settled 1.5 to 2 times higher once confirmations land'. Confirmed strait transits averaged 9,017 thousand barrels a day over the seven days to 3 October, against a pre-war baseline of 17,132 thousand; its tanker crossings dashboard counted seven crossings on 3 October and a seven-day average of 13 a day, against a pre-war level of 50. On the bypass, Kpler's Crude View of 2 October put the East-West pipeline near 5.5 million barrels a day, leaving roughly 4 million for export at Yanbu, the Saudi port on the Red Sea. ^[7]

The crossings now carry a price in wages. Some tanker captains earn base salaries of as much as 100,000 dollars plus a 50,000 dollar bonus for each voyage through the strait, and crews four to six times their normal pay, Al Jazeera reported, citing the Financial Times; it also cited the Wall Street Journal's report of a Shandong staffing company offering as much as 25,000 dollars for a round trip, and Bloomberg's account that shipping executives put the chance of being hit on a crossing at one in 20. 'The frequency of Iranian attacks on ships is now at the highest point since the war began, and likely to intensify further,' Saul Kavonic of MST Marquee told Reuters, as Al Jazeera reported. ^[10]

Reuters reported that China, the largest oil importer, is set to resume exports of refined fuels after its Golden Week holiday, which an analyst at PVM Oil Associates, Tamas Varga, said was moving prices lower alongside the President's pledge; Reuters also named Hurricane Isaias in the Gulf of Mexico, where producers had shut in about 1.3 million barrels a day, 62.9 percent of output, as of Thursday, according to the US Marine Minerals Administration. 'The escalation of atrocities in the Persian Gulf and around the Red Sea has dashed hopes that swelling oil exports from the region will be sustainable,' Varga said. ^[17]

Who it reaches

Every path is adjacent: no company listed in the United States is named in the attacks, the sanctions or the counts. The tanker owners carry the cargoes the strait and the bypass move. Frontline's report for April to June says that 'Risk levels across the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea and the Black Sea are rapidly changing with little warning, leading to more waiting time, disrupted flows and a greater need for fleet repositioning', and that a significant number of vessels have remained committed to Arabian Gulf trades, 'whether idle within the Gulf, engaged in shuttle employment across the strait, or loading at Fujairah and along the Omani coast'. ^[5]

CMB.TECH, a Belgian shipping group that owns crude tankers, says in its financial report for the first half of 2026 that the increase in its other operating income 'is mainly attributable to compensation received for loss of hire relating to vessels affected by the situation in the Strait of Hormuz', together with income from the sale of its stake in a tanker pool. Loss of hire is the earnings a ship forgoes while it cannot trade; the report does not say which vessels. ^[6]

Where the sources disagree

On the attacks. Kpler counts 10 tankers struck in the strait from 28 September to 4 October, CNN reported; Reuters counted at least 12 attacks on oil and gas tankers from 28 September to 5 October, gCaptain reported; Oilprice.com cites the US Navy-led Joint Maritime Information Center for at least 12 attacks between 28 September and 2 October. Kpler's own briefing of 5 October recorded its Insight team counting four confirmed incidents in the week to 2 October. The windows, the vessels counted and the standard of confirmation differ, and no count read here is an official tally of the week. ^{[9, 13, 18, 7]}

On the flows. Kpler's note of 6 October puts crude through the strait at no less than 10.1 million barrels a day and 74 percent of its pre-war level, Reuters reported, while Kpler analysts quoted by the BBC put the last two weeks' average at 12 million barrels a day, around 80 percent. Kpler's own method says its preliminary figures have typically settled 1.5 to 2 times higher, so Tuesday's seven ships are a floor, not a final count. Al Jazeera wrote that the seven vessels passed 'in the previous week', where Reuters and CNN put them on Tuesday alone. And on the bypass, Kpler's 5.5 million barrels a day for the East-West line sits below the 5.8 million that Al Jazeera's headline attributes to Saudi Arabia. ^{[8, 14, 7, 10, 9]}

On the sanctions and the talks. The Treasury's own release names 17 vessels; ANI counts 22 with the State Department's five, and Reuters, as Oilprice.com carried it, reported 17. The President calls the talks productive; Iran's President, Masoud Pezeshkian, said Tehran was 'engaged in dialogue, but every time we negotiate with the United States, they attack again', AFP reported, citing Iranian state media, and Reuters reported that Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, said Tehran was reviewing the US response to its proposal to reopen the strait within seven days. On the price, the reports agree: by the desk's arithmetic, Reuters' Friday figure of 102.6 dollars plus the 1.68 dollar fall is 104.28 dollars, the level AFP reported for Thursday. ^{[1, 19, 18, 15, 17]}

What settles it next

The dated records still to come. The US Energy Information Administration's weekly petroleum report for the week ending Friday 9 October, moved by the Columbus Day holiday to Thursday 15 October at 12:00 p.m. Eastern time. The Lufthansa Group's suspension of Riyadh flights, set to run through 16 October. The US midterm elections of 3 November, the date before which the President wrote there would be no attack. The meeting of the OPEC+ countries on Sunday 1 November, and the EIA's next Short-Term Energy Outlook on Tuesday 10 November. And the records with no date yet: Kpler's confirmed count for Tuesday 6 October once late confirmations land, UKMTO's count of the Acers' casualties, and Tehran's answer on the seven-day proposal. The next chapter opens with what those documents changed. ^{[2, 11, 15, 4, 3, 7, 13, 17]}

Sources

Every stock is a company; the desk grades the company behind the stock. This article describes; it does not recommend. Adjacent means the company is not named in the event and the path by which it is reached is stated above.

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