Reuters News

An average of 10 commodity ships transited the Strait of Hormuz per day over the past 10 days, the lowest since May, according to shipping data on Monday, after U.S. and Iranian strikes on tankers.The 10-day moving average was 10 on Sunday, down from more than 15 on Friday and nearly 13 on Saturday, data from analytics firm Kpler found.Only two vessels passed through the strait on Saturday while six went through on Sunday, mostly using the Iranian route.U.S. forces struck three Iranian oil tankers on Saturday, U.S.

South Korea is reviewing options, including military measures, to support freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, the presidential office said on Friday, while denying media reports that the government had already decided on a deployment.Several South Korean media outlets, including JTBC and MBC, reported late on Thursday that Seoul was preparing to deploy military assets before the end of the year and could seek parliamentary approval this month.The reports said options under consideration included a maritime patrol aircraft…

Argentine President Javier Milei said on Thursday he would tighten sanctions on companies involved in oil projects around the Falkland Islands, boost defense resources in the country's south and send Congress a bill aimed at strengthening Argentina's response to what he called violations of its sovereignty.In a televised address, Milei said he would sign a decree to speed sanctions under Argentine law against companies participating in oil and gas extraction in territory Argentina…

China's Ministry of Natural Resources conducted a survey of waters east of Taiwan last month that it said would help it create "one map" for territorial planning and resource management, state broadcaster CCTV said on Thursday.China has been stepping up its activities to the east of Taiwan in the Pacific Ocean to assert its claims of sovereignty and jurisdiction over the island and its waters, to the anger of the government in Taipei.Taiwan's coast guard said on August 21 that it had warned off and shadowed a Chinese research ship sailing in sensitive waters near the island…

Turkish authorities continued searching on Thursday for 10 crew members missing after a cargo ship sank off the coast of Istanbul following a collision with another vessel, state-owned Anadolu Agency reported.Two Turkish-flagged commercial vessels collided in the Sea of Marmara off Istanbul on Wednesday. Authorities said one of the ships, carrying 10 crew members, is believed to have sunk within about 11 minutes of the crash.Search operations involving the coast guard, navy, disaster management agency and other emergency services were continuing on Thursday.

Norwegian authorities have seized a Russian cruise ship in the Arctic on behalf of Ukrainian energy company Naftogaz, which is seeking to enforce a $4.22 billion compensation award for assets that Moscow took when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.Officials said the vessel, the Professor Molchanov, was seized late on Wednesday in Barentsburg, a coal mining settlement that Russia operates on the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard under the terms of a 1920 treaty.Russia called the arrest of the ship an act of piracy and said it had summoned the Norwegian ambassador to deliver a strong protest.

Nigeria could double investment into its energy sector within five years after joining the International Energy Agency, its chief Fatih Birol said on Thursday, as nations seek partners they can "trust" after supply disruptions from the wars in Iran and Ukraine.Speaking during a visit to Abuja, Birol told Reuters that Nigeria's admission as an associate member of the Paris-based energy watchdog would help attract investment, deepen technical cooperation and give Africa's largest oil producer a stronger voice in global energy policy discussions."My goal is…

A U.S. campaign to throttle Iran's economy by blockading its oil exports and stopping sanctions evasion is growing increasingly difficult to withstand, three senior Iranian sources said.Washington has in recent weeks sought to ratchet up the economic pressure on Tehran, in an effort to extract concessions in any future negotiation that six months of conflict have so far failed to secure.Although Iran's clerical rulers managed to bypass sanctions for decades, the latest U.S. moves have left them in a far more sensitive position…

Norway announced on Wednesday that it had taken a Russian vessel at the request from Ukrainian state-owned Naftogaz to ensure the Russian Federation met its obligations.Since 2016, the Ukrainian company has taken legal action against Russia to seek compensation for Moscow expropriating Naftogaz's property during Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014.In April 2023, a tribunal at The Hague ordered Russia to pay Naftogaz a total of $4.22 billion in compensation for assets it had seized in Crimea.

Iran has added more ships it deems as non-compliant and subject to fines, confiscation or detention if they try to sail through the Strait of Hormuz, according to a government website.Tehran said on August 24 it had blacklisted 45 tankers that had broken its rules for navigating the Strait of Hormuz, and would take action against any vessels transferring loads, escalating its threats over the key waterway six months into a ‌war that began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran.In an update on the website of the Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA)…

Tankers and cargo ships are transiting the Bosphorus strait adorned with nets, water tanks and tyres to try to fend off growing Russian and Ukrainian drone strikes in the Black Sea, according to security experts and video obtained by Reuters.In a stark illustration of the risks, the abandoned Russian-flagged cargo ship Omskiy-107 - its command deck burned out - drifted from Russian waters to a northern Istanbul beach east of the Bosphorus, one of the world's busiest shipping routes.Ukraine has stepped up attacks on ships and infrastructure facilitating Russian oil and grain exports since July…

Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest crude exporter, said on Wednesday that an Iranian attack on an oil tanker owned by its national shipping company had killed two Filipino seafarers.Sidr, owned by Bahri, was one of two supertankers carrying Saudi oil reported to have been hit late on Monday while transiting the Strait of Hormuz.Tehran has threatened tankers attempting to sail through the narrow waterway without authorisation, impeding energy exports from neighbouring oil-rich Gulf…

Ukrainian attacks on Russian naval vessels have caused significant but not critical damage, President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday.He said Ukraine had damaged around 100 vessels over a 40-day period, with the resulting damage equivalent to 1% of gross domestic product (GDP).(Reuters - Reporting by Maxim Rodionov in London, Dmitry Antonov and Ksenia Orlova in Moscow; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

The U.S. launched a barrage of airstrikes against Iran on Tuesday, prompting Iranian retaliation, in the most serious escalation in weeks in a conflict that has driven up global energy prices and weighed on President Donald Trump's popularity at home.The U.S. military said late on Tuesday it completed its latest wave of strikes on Iran. U.S. forces struck IRGC targets "including air defense sites, radar systems, maritime assets and facilities, mine laying capabilities, and communications sites," the U.S. Central Command said on X. An Axios report, citing U.S. officials, said the U.S.

China's state-owned shipping giant COSCO uses concealed equipment on board its ships to spy on military communications near the coastlines of target nations including the U.S., two senior Trump administration officials said.The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. assessment of the Chinese program, said COSCO has a decades-long intelligence-collection partnership with Beijing. The arrangement allows China to collect communication signals from vessels and aircraft operating across Europe…

For the first time on record, Iran has gone about seven weeks without shipping meaningful crude exports through the Strait of Hormuz, as a U.S. naval blockade succeeds where years of sanctions failed by cutting off one of Tehran's main sources of foreign-currency earnings. Unlike previous sanctions campaigns, when Iranian crude continued reaching buyers despite restrictions, the current blockade has stopped fresh crude cargoes reaching China, Tehran's only major remaining oil customer, increasing pressure on government finances and foreign-currency reserves.Since the U.S.

U.S. oil company North American Blue Energy Partners will take over some oilfields previously controlled by several Chinese companies and a Russian firm, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Monday.The takeover will be part of a sweeping oil production agreement that President Donald Trump announced with Venezuela, they said.The projects were among 14 contracts newly granted to U.S.-backed North American Blue Energy Partners, according to the officials. NABEP was previously owned by U.S.

A specialist team from Turkey equipped to search deep waters started work on Tuesday to pinpoint the wreckage of a ferry thatcapsized off northern Cyprus on Sunday, with 20 people still missing.At least eight people died when the twin-hulled vessel started taking in water and overturned shortly after leaving the port of Kyrenia with 267 passengers and crew on board.The Turkish navy rescue vessel has a remotely operated vehicle able to search the deep water where the ferry sank…

Two supertankers carrying Saudi oil were struck by unknown projectiles within minutes of each other while transiting outbound through the Strait of Hormuz late on Monday, according to shipping intelligence and tracking firms Marisks and Kpler."The near-simultaneous incidents represent a further escalation in the threat environment within the Omani corridor," Marisks said.The tankers each loaded 2 million barrels of Saudi crude at the Juaymah terminal last week, Kpler data showed. Saudi Aramco resumed oil loadings and sales from inside the strait in August.Iranian and U.S.

The small Pacific Island state of Vanuatu is trying to bring a decades-old dispute with France over two uninhabited islands before the International Court of Justice, the United Nations' top court said on Tuesday.The ICJ, also known as the World Court, will not immediately accept the case because France has not agreed to so-called compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ over its disputes with other states. Vanuatu's claim has been sent to Paris to see whether France agrees to let the court take it on…

From Canada to Argentina, oil producers across the Americas have enjoyed a windfall during the Iran war by capturing market share lost by Middle Eastern exporters. The renewed focus on energy security globally could transform this emergency response into a lasting structural change.Oil production in the Americas has become a viable alternative to the Middle East's vast hydrocarbon resources since the outbreak of the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz six months ago, which disrupted roughly a fifth of global oil supplies.

An unprecedented deal for the U.S. to gain access to a fifth of Venezuela's oil reserves - and the central role a Venezuelan businessman will play - is prompting questions and hesitation from some oil companies evaluating potential investments in the country, sources familiar with the situation told Reuters.A White House fact sheet released late on Monday outlined an arrangement under which private oil firm North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP) would receive a 100-year lease for 17 oilfields in Venezuela holding some 65 billion barrels of oil reserves. The U.S.

A tanker has reported being struck by three projectiles while sailing out of the Strait of Hormuz, 17 nautical miles east of Oman's Khasab, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency (UKMTO) said on Tuesday.No casualties or environmental impact have been reported, UKMTO said.TRANSITSThe number of vessels sailing through the Strait of Hormuz was little changed on Monday compared with the weekend, hovering around five, preliminary ship-tracking data showed on Tuesday, below the 10-day average of around 14.Four of the vessels entered the strait and one exited…